











f^0 




, / ‘ 





Y 

V 




I 


* 



1 



f 


W 


i 


9 




<•« 

tf 

•i 


M 





f 



t 


i * 




I 






MRS. LORIMER: 


SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE 


LUCAS MALET. 





KEW YORK: 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

1, 8, AND 5 BOND STPwEET. 

1883. 


V ,4''- *-'•:* • :'V 

. . 1 . ' - 


% 










> 


* 

«♦ 


>4 


i 




> •# 


r 

r 











f 


> . 


r 




« 



•• r ^ \ 

X*.t V 


I 


I 


% 


« 


• r 


> • 


\ 

•f 


A 







4' 


4 

» 


‘h V 




1 


I 






• . 






V 


« 


> 




* 



« 




i 



} 


< -r 


1 


V 

f 



r 

• • 








1 


S 


J 

V 







•< 











4 


> 


• ./ 

^ » 
, V 



> J 


'• V* 

Ar^ -• 





r 


\ . » 

t , 

r 

9 

I < 




% 


/• 



I 



^V 







* 

4 


s 




( 


n 




/ » 
V 














t 


■ ^.f '> '. ■ ■' ■ 


fJ ^4 






> .^ ’ - , 

'V : • - . t . 


9 

t • ^ 




•# ' 



1, >^ •' ■ ” ■ «, .' > 
“rt 4 ' -1 » ^ • * 

4 *' • I * 

rr-** ^ i- •. 

• ^ ... ■ - 7 .. • . 

^ t ■ : 

* ^ A 

^ r. ' 

t - : . ••* 




4 ‘ 


• ^ 




r «* ^ 


V 

^ . . r 

M'^ 






\ 




* I 


■ . r, 

c *7 * . - -• ' •«' 

^ ^ t'v,' - - f r • • 

• . % 

' 'i * .«,' 

* - I . w * 


‘r 


•» ' \ 
r v'->* 


v.T*: ^ • 


. I? 






^ \ 


• I 


J 


4 »V 


» • ^ i " ' 

• \ r* * ^ ^ . Si ^ , p. X >• 

■• -.■.>,■ ■i<'/-, viiWf I 








\. 


' • ^ 


I 


r ^ 

y \ 

\ 


%. 

6 %. 

*^< 

« ft 

i* 


/ 



f 

9 


T 


t 



t 


% 


\ 



4 


i 




\ 


94 ^ 

9 M 



« 


ft 





MRS. LORIMER 


PART I. 


CHAPTER I. 

“ speaking in parable, I am Colin Clout. 

A clinging flavor penetrates my life — 

My onion is imperfectness : I cleave 
To nature’s blunders, evanescent types 
‘Which sages banish from Utopia.” 

The Parish of Claybrooke was agitated. Rot by 
any public event of world- wide interest. Wars and 
the rumors of them affected the apathetic life of this 
midland village very slightly. All Europe might have 
been given over to fire and sword, and Claybrooke, 
meanwhile, would have remained serenely neutral, so 
long as bread did not “ go up,” and beasts fetched a 
fair price at Slowby market on Thursdays. Local in- 
terests were the only real interests of its inhabitants. 
The year 1815, for example, was unimportant, save as 
being the year following the great snow, when six of 
Mr. Robins’s sheep were buried for a matter of eight 
days in a drift, down against the hedge, by the towing 
path. Again, the year 1854 was rendered more memo- 
rable by the fact that old Mr. Stayley of Highthorne 
was killed by a fall from his horse, on a Tuesday in the 


4 


MES. LOEIMER. 


third ^eek in January, just by the corner of the fox- 
covert on the Lowcote Road, than by the battle of In- 
kermann or the bombardment of Sevastopol. 

Claybrooke rigidly applied what mind it possessed 
to its own affairs. The Christian charity or dull dislike 
of its inhabitants seemed alike incapable of extending 
beyond a radius of some eight or ten miles. Outside 
the sacred circle of neighborhood nothing appeared 
very interesting or important. That existence should 
be^ possible in other and more distant regions seemed 
strange. That life should really be worth living to 
people who had never been to' Slowby market ; had 
never hunted with the Midlandshire hounds ; had never 
dined seriously, and with an agreeable sense of dignity 
and importance, at the tables of the neighboring county 
magnates ; had never been to a clerical meeting at the 
Archdeacon’s, or seen Mr. Gerald Main waring, in gray 
breeches and gaiters, representing all the majesty of the 
English law to apple-stealing youths, on the bench of 
magistrates at Slowby — that life, I say, should be in any 
way important or desirable to persons unacquainted 
with these things and debarred from these high privi- 
leges, seemed almost incredible to the Claybrooke 
mind. 

But if the sympathies of Claybrooke were not wide, 
they were certainly deep. There not being many events 
in this quiet neighborhood to observe, the few events 
that did occur were very thoroughly talked over and 
thought over. The joys of gossip were by no means 
unknown. The satisfaction arising from the discovery 
of an acquaintance’s mistakes and short-comings was a 
form of satisfaction freely indulged in. A delicate 
movement of self-complacency in face of the sins and 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 


5 


misfortunes of friends and relations is at least as com- 
mon in the quiet country as in the busy town ; and the 
judgments of Claybrooke were not one whit more just 
or merciful than human judgments are usually wont to 
be. Yet men and women struggled to be pure and un- 
selfish ; they nursed the sick and fed the hungry ; they 
loved and forgave ; they lived in godly fear and died 
fortified by eternal hope, in this unimportant, little, 
midland parish as elsewhere in this confusing world. 

At the time of which I write a cloud had hung oyer 
Claybrooke Rectory for many long weeks. Far away, 
among olive grounds and orange gardens by the shores 
of the distant Mediterranean, a man was fighting gal- 
lantly, but hopelessly, against the great enemy Death ; 
and a beautiful woman sat watching, in dread and 
strange amazement, the progress of the bitter struggle. 
At home, in the stately old Rectory-house, kind hearts 
waited and hoped against hope. The news was bad 
enough in the autumn ; it grew worse and worse through 
the winter months ; and in the softer days of February 
when the frost had given place to mist and fog over 
the heavy clay lands, and the first snow-drops pushed 
their way up through the black garden mold, Mr. and 
Mrs. Main waring learned that Robert Lorimer was 
dead, and that Elizabeth — their niece — who had left 
them as a bride not two years ago, was coming back to 
them a widow. 

Every one, I suppose, has wasted half an hour, at 
some period during the course of his childhood, in drop- 
ping pebbles into a still pond or pool, and watching the 
graceful rings which, after the first little splash, spread 
themselves in ever-widening circles over the face of the 
water. A good-sized pebble had, so to speak, dropped 


6 


MES. LOEIMEK. 


into the social pool at Claybrooke Rectory on that foggy 
February day, in consequence of which a series of gen- 
tle undulations of surprise, interest, and pity, spread 
themselves over the quiet surface of the county socie- 
ty for some ten or fifteen miles round. Kind - hearted 
country squires, in after-dinner talk over their claret, 
pitied the handsome young creature, left alone in the 
world, with no husband to care for or child to cheer her. 
They deplored, too, the trouble that had fallen on Mr. 
Mainwaring ; for everybody, whose opinion was worth 
anything, held that a more thoroughly good fellow, or 
a better man across country — notwithstanding his sixty 
and odd years — could not be found. And though it 
must be owned that in proportion as a man likes his 
niece, he will probably dislike the man she marries, it 
was known that certain very dear hopes depended on 
Elizabeth Lorimer’s marriage, which Mr. Mainwaring 
would find it hard to relinquish. 

The clergy, too, were full of solicitude concerning 
both the uncle and the niece, for the Rector of Clay- 
brooke was held in high repute by the majority of his 
brethren. Perhaps his reputation was greater from 
the social than from the professional standpoint. Mr. 
Mainwaring was the last representative of an old Mid- 
landshire family, and had married, early in life, a lady 
whose connections held a high position among the local 
aristocracy. Her brother, Sir Sellinger Selford of Sel- 
ford, was a man of considerable standing in the north 
of the county. The baronetcy, indeed, dated from those 
stormy and troublous times when “ the King’s Parlia- 
ment sat at Oxford ” — a fact which the Selfords never ig- 
nored when a chance of referring to it arose in ordinary 
conversation. Mr. Mainwaring, therefore, was regarded 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 


7 


as supplying that secure link between the lay and cler- 
ical worlds which is too often missing. And when Mr. 
Leeper, the newly-inducted vicar of Lowcote — who had 
come into the neighborhood, hot from town work, full of 
views, and of a desire that the clergy should “ stand 
shoulder to shoulder,” and defy an indifferent and un- 
toward generation of laity — annoyed by some rather 
sharp observations of Mr. Mainwaring’s at a ruridecanal 
meeting — ventured to describe that reverend gentleman 
as a “ fox-hunting Erastian,” and to compare him to the 
oft-quoted Gallio, he discovered, very shortly, that he 
had made a terrible mistake. Even Mr. Harbage of 
Highthorne — a mild, fair, and rather stout person, who, 
in the interests of four marriageable daughters, had 
always appeared very anxious to conciliate Mr. Leeper 
— reminded him that the Bishop staid quite as often 
at Claybrooke Rectory as he did at the Archdeacon’s, 
and that it was hardly becoming in a new-comer to 
criticise so respected a member of one of the oldest fami- 
lies in the county. 

It must also be noted that a death in itself is gen- 
erally interesting. Marriages demand time to develop 
symptoms of happiness or misery before they afford 
very much subject for conversation. Births are too 
common to create very much excitement, as a rule. 
But a death immediately supplies matter for meditation, 
which appears to be fairly agreeable to all except, per- 
haps, the very young. The details of illness, and remi- 
niscences of friends or near relations who have suffered 
from the same malady — always, strangely enough, in a 
very aggravated form ; the feelings of the survivors ; 
the amount of the estate of the deceased — all afford 
edifying matter for thought and conversation. To 


8 


MRS. LORIMER. 


some few minds the more spiritual and everlasting as- 
pects of the matter may present themselves. A small 
minority will lose themselves in speculations concerning 
the great Hereafter ; and in obstinate questionings ” 
regarding that mysterious and impenetrable curtain, 
which the hand of death suddenly draws between us 
and those who have been bone of our bone, and flesh 
of our flesh,” whose looks and habits, whose speech, 
whose very clothes, are among the most familiar of our 
daily impressions. 

But undoubtedly the concrete and the finite present 
themselves much more readily to most people, than the 
abstract and the infinite. In the dull country neighbor- 
hood around Claybrooke, people, as a rule, lived long. 
“ Wearing out ” is next to impossible in such an atmos- 
phere ; and “ rusting out ” — that process so terrible in 
theory to young and ardent minds — is, in truth, a very 
lengthy business, compatible with much quiet useful- 
ness, and synonymous, in the majority of cases, with 
living to a good old age. 

Most of the neighboring clergy, who as slim youths 
fresh from the universities had married years ago and 
settled in their pleasant parsonage houses, were now 
well on in middle life. But though they had grown 
bulky in figure, with much sitting over sermons ; though 
some had a slight disposition to rheumatic pains when 
the winter cold set in ; and though all observed more 
wrinkles and gray hairs than were altogether pleasant, 
as they gazed into their looking-glasses during the opera- 
tion of shaving in the morning — no one of them all had 
the faintest intention of leaving his children fatherless, 
or his worthy wife a widow, for many years to come. 
Therefore, that so young a man as Robert Lorimer 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 


9 


should die seemed, it must be confessed, somewhat 
strange and alarming. Several gentlemen had their 
great-coats relined with a view to keeping out March 
winds, lest any chest should be more susceptible of cold 
than its owner had hitherto suspected. Mr. Jones, the 
Claybrooke curate, went so far as to appear in a new 
woolen comforter and a pair of India-rubber overshoes 
— much to the distress of a young clerical neighbor of 
sporting proclivities, who had volunteered to drive him 
over to the meeting of the Board of Guardians at Slow- 
by ; and who felt that his neat dog-cart and high-step- 
ping cob were most painfully compromised by his com- 
panion’s personal appearance. People who know what 
is what do not wear comforters or goloshes in Midland- 
shire ! In the winter you should straddle a little, with 
your hands under your coat-tails, in front of a roaring 
fire, conscious that your shooting-boots and gaiters defy 
any amount of wet and mud ; and talk in robust and 
cheerful tones of the fine seasonable weather, however 
intolerable the cold or penetrating the damp may be 
outside.** If any thoughts concerning the prevalence of 
disease or the shortness of human life assail you, it is 
wonderful how an extra glass of sherry, after luncheon, 
will restore the naturally hopeful tone of your mind, 
and enable you to feel a comfortable assurance that you 
“ are good for many years yet.” 

On the whole, men’s emotions are more simple and 
kindly than those of women. Their minds are, so to 
speak, like ordinary houses, with one front and one back 
staircase — you know they must go up by one or the 
other to get to the upper rooms. While women’s minds 
may be fitly compared to those queer, old, country man- 
sions which are full of little unnecessary flights of stairs 


10 


MES. LOEIMER. 


— you can never be sure whether you are walking on 
the level or not. Meantime the owner, too often, darts 
out upon you suddenly from some wholly unexpected 
doorway or landing, having arrived there you know not 
how. Men were simply sorry for Mrs. Lorimer ; and 
were extremely glad w^hen any acquaintance, whom 
they happened to meet, told them that they were look- 
ing remarkably well. But mixed and confused sensa- 
tions, interesting to note — and wholly incomprehensible 
to the bulk of the male population — reigned in the fe- 
male breasts in and around Claybrooke. 

To begin with, there was something altogether phe- 
nomenal about so young a widow. Worthy mothers of 
growing sons and daughters naturally regarded trouble 
and loss as dignified. They had a certain satisfaction 
in remembering that they had known Elizabeth Lori- 
mer, as a little toddling thing who could hardly speak 
plain ; had advised Mrs. Mainwaring concerning the 
length of her sleeves, and the best way of soothing her 
when she suffered from various childish maladies. At 
the same time, a delicate flavor of annoyance tempered 
their sympathetic interest, inasmuch as this young creat- 
ure appeared to them somewhat in the light of a prodi- 
gal, who at her still tender age had managed to run 
through the stock of experiences that last most women 
their whole lives. She seemed in some way to have got 
quite an unfair start of them ; to have assumed brevet 
rank ; to have the advantages, and to demand the con- 
sideration, generally accorded to mature life, without 
its accumulation of cares, its gray hairs and faded com- 
plexion, its sense of bustle and sense of weariness, its 
anxious thoughts regarding the professions of sons and 
the marriages of daughters. 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 


11 


Some few ladies went even further. They had a 
lurking feeling that there was a touch of not uncalled- 
for retributive justice in poor Robert Lorimer’s early 
death. They would have been horrified if any one had 
taxed them with this feeling : most of us permit our- 
selves a certain latitude in thought, which appears sub- 
versive of all morals and only worthy of the most 
abandoned character when honestly put into words. 
We are all at times remarkably tolerant of our own un- 
spoken meannesses and hardness of heart. But it is 
only fair to admit that there certainly are few things 
more irritating to the members of a small society — 
where unmarried men are scarce and unmarried women 
plentiful — than the sudden discovery that some young 
girl, for whom the general consensus of public opinion 
has selected one husband, should, meanwhile, have se- 
lected quite another husband for herself. Especially is 
this irritating when her choice has fallen upon a swain, 
whose affections were reckoned perfectly disengaged ; 
and who had been regarded, both by watchful mothers 
and maidens, as wholly to the good in their matrimonial 
calculations. 

Elizabeth Mainwaring had been guilty of this seri- 
ous offense against her neighbors some eighteen months 
before the time of which we now speak ; and the silent 
grudge, which some persons owed her for her unex- 
pected marriage, had hardly yet died away. 

Public opinion had unanimously concluded that Eliz- 
abeth would marry a certain young Mr. Edward Dadley, 
who, by way of managing his aunt Miss Maria Dadley’s 
estate for her, spent two very pleasant winters at Clay- 
brooke. He was a fresh-faced, clean-limbed young gen- 
tleman, possessing better qualities of the heart than of 


12 


MRS. LORIMER. 


the head. He hunted three days a week, and spent 
nearly all the rest of his time at the Rectory, so that it 
may be questioned whether Miss Maria Dadley’s estate 
profited very sensibly from the watchfulness of his eye 
or controlling power of his hand. 

Elizabeth Mainwaring developed very much out- 
wardly during those two years. From a dark, over- 
grown girl, silent and shy, whose colt-like length of 
limb and angularity of movement were a distinct trial 
to her aunt Mrs. Mainwaring’s delicate perceptions of 
grace and propriety, she blossomed into an unusually 
handsome young woman. She was tall, but with an 
easy carriage, and a figure so well proportioned that her 
height did not strike one as unpleasing. She had a clear 
brown skin, and the curly mouse-colored hair which so 
often goes with straight, well-cut features, and eyes of 
the dark gray that, under excitement, seem to deepen 
into actual violet. Such women, I think, do not develop 
very early either spiritually or mentally. The colt-stage 
is a long one with them ; they are often handsomer 
at thirty than at twenty. They are almost invariably 
honest, loyal, and generous, but a little dangerous. You 
may live with one of them for years, fancying that you 
know all about her ; and some fine day your poor, rea- 
sonable, slow-moving, masculine mind will be greatly 
distracted and confused by finding that she has taken 
an entirely new departure ; that some dormant emotion, 
or early impression, has awakened within her ; that she 
has made a discovery, and proposes to reconstruct her 
plan of life on new principles. She is neither a fanatic 
nor a propagandist ; she does not ask you to change ; 
but she does ask you to permit her to become some- 
thing quite other than that which she has been hereto- 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 


13 


fore. A man suffers a good deal under these circum- 
stances. If discoveries are about, he would prefer that 
other men’s wives should make them, rather than his own. 

But, notwithstanding Elizabeth’s increasing beauty, 
Edward Dadley disappeared rather suddenly from the 
Claybrooke stage. His aunt merely said that family 
business demanded his return to his father’s place in 
the north. One morning his hunters, arrayed in much 
clothing, went over in charge of two tight-looking 
grooms to Slowby station ; were got — with some kicking 
and stamping on their part, a good deal of coaxing and 
some objurgations on the part of the grooms, and not a 
little nervousness on that of the assistant-porters — into 
a string of horse-boxes, and steamed away northward. 
While their owner, in a first-class carriage, meditated 
over an excellent cigar that even the best of fathers 
might prove a nuisance at times ; and that, though obe- 
dience was undoubtedly a great virtue, it was too often 
a singularly disagreeable one to practice. 

About two months after Edward Dadley’s depart- 
ure, Elizabeth Mainwaring met Hobert Lorimer for the 
first time. He had come down from London to spend a 
few days with an old college friend, the rector of Mel- 
vin’s Keeping — the same gentleman whose feelings were 
subsequently so much outraged by Mr. Jones’s comforter 
and goloshes. Robert Lorimer saw Elizabeth several 
times at different houses in the neighborhood, and fell 
very much in love with the tall, handsome young girl. 
He found a number of excellent reasons for staying a 
month instead of a few days with his old college friend. 
He came back to Melvin’s Keeping again in June ; and 
early in September he and Elizabeth Mainwaring were 
married. 


14 


MRS. LORIMER. 


Any one living within ten miles of Claybrooke is not 
likely to forget the amount of talk which this event 
gave rise to. I groan in spirit still when I recall it. 
But the history of the young couple’s married life, alas ! 
was as sad as it was short. About a year later Rob- 
ert Lorimer fell ill. Undeniable signs of consumption 
showed themselves. He was ordered abroad for the 
winter : the disease, however, developed itself with ter- 
rible rapidity, and only too soon there could be no rea- 
sonable doubt as to the final result. Even at the time 
of the wedding, a keen observer in looking at Robert 
Lorimer might have doubted whether he would be a 
long-lived man. There was something a trifle too re- 
fined and delicate in the cutting of his face, a suspicious 
openness in the nostril, and a certain languor of manner 
and bearing, at times, which many people thought a lit- 
tle affected and insolent, but which really betokened a 
distinct want of vitality. 

Fortunately, however, for the comfort and peace of 
the world in general, keen observers are rare. Most 
people are very willing to take for granted that a man 
of two-and-thirty, who is an excellent cricketer, and has 
the reputation of having been rather a celebrated oar at 
college, must have, as a matter of course, many years 
before him. It was simply from the social point of view 
that the Claybrooke world held up its hands, in a flutter 
of surprise, at the marriage. Robert Lorimer was only 
a young barrister, giving no particular promise of a 
great career in his profession. Mr. Main waring could 
not be much pleased, it was said, at his niece’s choice, 
with his feeling about the landed interest. Mrs. Main- 
waring — in virtue of having been a Selford of Selford — 
was known to have a strong appreciation of what is 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 


15 


generally spoken of as ‘‘family.” Robert Lorimer was 
undeniably a gentleman — some people, indeed, thought 
he was disposed to be rather too fine a gentleman, con- 
sidering his position — but he had no local standing. He 
had some money : but Elizabeth would have plenty of 
money of her own in time. It was hinted that he was 
too fond of books and pictures and music to be wholly 
satisfactory. Literature and the arts, regarded from 
any other than a purely amateur point of view, are 
reckoned a little dangerous in Midlandshire. The mar- 
riage, in short, appeared very incomprehensible, and 
somewhat of the nature of a mistake. 

It was improbable that the Mainwarings wished, at 
all keenly, to annex Robert Lorimer ; and oh ! what 
would not some other people have given to possess him ! 
Mrs. Harbage, for instance, during a few short weeks, 
had cherished the fond illusion that her second daughter 
Emily, whose youth was passing all too quickly, had 
made some impression upon the young barrister. Poor 
Mrs. Harbage would naturally have been very thankful 
to see one of her children safely provided for. Mrs. 
Harbage had not an easy life of it. She rose early, and 
late took rest, working in her own home and in her 
husband’s parish ; devising even on her bed at night — 
when certain sounds beside her testified to the ponder- 
ous slumbers of her spouse — means to make a small in- 
come cover ever-increasing expenses ; thinking how to 
clothe and educate growing boys and girls, who, be- 
cause their father was a clergyman of the Church of 
England, and consequently a gentleman, must be as 
well dressed and well informed, must go to the same 
public schools and colleges, must be encouraged to have 
the same expensive tastes and the same gentleman-like 


16 


MRS. LORIMER. 


indifference to the squandering of small cash, as Sir 
Frederic Melvin’s or Squire Adnitt’s sons and daughters. 
Mr. Harbage’s income was about £600, all told, with 
deductions for parish expenses, and a heavy life-insur- 
ance premium. Sir Frederic Melvin’s might be set down 
at nearly twice as many thousands : but all gentlemen 
are equal — a blessed truth, the mother of most bad debts 
and many broken hearts ! If Robert Lorimer had mar- 
ried Emily, Mrs. Harbage felt that her faith in the 
goodness of Providence would have been sensibly in- 
creased. Alas ! in the event she only learned that 
‘‘ unto every one that hath shall be given ” — a hard say- 
ing, and one which had always appeared to her in ur- 
gent need of the attention of the revisers of the New 
Testament. 

Such, then, were briefly the facts of Elizabeth Lori- 
mer’s life up to the present time, and the effect which 
the news of her husband’s early death had upon the 
mimic world of Claybrooke and its neighborhood. 


CHAPTER II. 

“ A land where all things always seemed the same I ” 

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Lorimer, the subject of all 
this thought and conversation, was traveling, through 
the clear winter night and the bright winter day, far- 
ther and farther from the vines and olives of the south 
of France, and nearer and nearer to our damp and misty 
midlands. 

The life she had lived for the last two years, with 
all its interests and hopes, its pleasures and its doubts, 
with all its unfulfilled promises and its restless wishes, 
lay buried for ever by the tideless southern sea ; while 
the hurrying train seemed to be bearing her swiftly for- 
ward toward another state of existence. 

As she lay huddled up among rugs and cushions on 
the seat of the coupe, Elizabeth felt too tired to think, 
or to sleep, or to sorrow. She was only conscious of 
the muffled roar of the rushing train as it sped north- 
ward ; conscious that, when they reached Paris, she 
must drag herself up from these comfortable cushions, 
which her brother-in-law, Frank Lorimer, had arranged 
for her, and help to claim her luggage ; conscious that 
there would be another space of noisy quiet in the train, 
followed by a weary struggle to get on board the boat 
at Calais ; that London would appear as a smoky vision, 
and then that, at last, she would reach the final stage of 


18 


MRS. LORIMER. 


her journey. About two hours later the great green 
pastures, divided by their high hawthorn hedges, would 
stretch out on either side of the railway-track ; long 
rows of elm-trees would rise against the low gray sky ; 
sober-looking carts would jolt along muddy by-roads ; 
anxious, yet stolid people, laden with innumerable bas- 
kets and parcels, would struggle in and out of third- 
class carriages, dragging alarmed, big-cheeked, little 
boys and girls after them. Elizabeth seemed to see it 
all. The journey, with all its varying scenes stretched 
out before her like a great picture ; and she almost fan- 
cied that when the train stopped at Slowby, and her 
traveling was over — some six-and- thirty hours hence — 
she would find herself a little brown-faced maid again, 
whom tall Uncle Gerald would take up tenderly in his 
arms and kiss ; and Aunt Susan would gently reprove 
for her inability to sit still ; and whom Mrs. Smart 
would alternately coax and scold, while she undressed 
her by the nursery fire in the evening. 

When we are young it is so difficult to believe in 
sorrow and disaster. So much easier to think that 
somehow we shall wake up and find the dear old days 
again, with kind people who will pet\is and take care 
of us and tell us what to do and what to leave undone. 
Elizabeth was young, and she was too tired, just now, 
to realize that in future she would have to be her own 
guide and conscience-keeper. Lying there, as the train 
ran on mile after mile northward, it seemed to her that 
trouble, and painful experience, and the awful mysteri- 
ous shadow of death, were being left far behind on the 
shores of the unquiet Mediterranean, and that at Clay- 
brooke she would find the sweet monotony of spelling- 
books and pinafores once more. 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 19 

But one thing disturbed this peaceful dream — the 
presence of her brother-in-law, Frank Lorimer. He sat 
in the corner of the coiip'e^ enveloped in a heavy ulster, 
while the light of the lamp fell with irritating clearness 
on the top of his traveling-cap, the end of his nose, and 
the point of his light-brown beard. Ho amount of 
dreaming would dream away that solid English figure ; 
and he sat there as the sign and seal of the truth of all 
those painful and mysterious facts which poor Eliza- 
beth would so willingly have disbelieved in. 

Frank Lorimer, sitting in the corner of the railway 
carriage, pondered quietly over many things. Life had 
dealt pleasantly enough with him so far. At one-and- 
thirty he found himself strong, able, and ready for 
much enjoyment in many different ways. He had an 
enormous capacity for friendship — or comradeship, as 
he preferred to have it called. But he was too healthy, 
both in mind and body, to be fully satisfied with so 
spiritual a form of relationship, as the existence of Mrs. 
Frank Lorimer and two slim, curly-headed babies clearly 
proved. Underneath certain theories and affectations, 
his nature rested upon a firm basis of common-sense, 
which inspired ofle with considerable faith in his judg- 
ment, and comfort in his presence. His elder brother’s 
death was the first real break in his life, the first real 
trouble that he had experienced ; but his naturally sen- 
sible mind accepted death as one of the necessary con- 
ditions of existence ; and his sorrow, therefore, was 
wholly unmixed with those bitter feelings of injury, 
and — must I add — of anger, which alone make grief 
intolerable. Such bereavements were common to the 
lot of all men, therefore his individual lot was merely 
subject to the general law. He took comfort in the 


20 


MRS. LORIMER. 


thought, and was genuinely glad to find that he could 
take comfort in it. He was a kind and sensible rather 
than an heroic soul. He quite appreciated heroes ; but, 
for his own part, he preferred the common walks of life 
and its average emotions, to mountain-tops in cloud and 
storm, and passions “ torn to tatters.” 

Frank Lorimer did not meditate very deeply on his 
own feelings under existing circumstances. He was 
thinking — ^if the truth must be told — over the leading 
points of an article on the present relations of France 
and Italy, for the weekly paper of which he was sub- 
editor ; of the pleasure of getting back to his own home 
and to those engaging babies ; and of the probable fut- 
ure of his handsome young sister-in-law, in whom he 
thought he detected a tendency toward the tempests of 
feeling and strange exaggerations of conduct which 
were so foreign to his own well-balanced temperament. 

Claybrooke was reached at last. It was dusk, and 
the west wind rushed through the bare branches of the 
high-standing elm-trees, in the village street. Some 
round-eyed children clustered on the foot-path ; and 
Shepherd Judge — clothed in a stout linen slop and cor- 
duroy trousers, which were stained, with much hand- 
ling of sheep and working in heavy clay fallows, to the 
dirty yellow of his native soil — loitered a moment to 
watch the carriage turn in at the Rectory gates. Then, 
fearing that he had displayed more interest in passing 
events than was wholly dignified in a man who had the 
care of some hundred and fifty-five ewes on his hands — 
this being lambing season — he turned sharply on the 
staring children, and reproved them for “ standing there 
dawdling in the road and mucking their pinafores, when 
they’d be a deal better abed ; ” and, after whistling to 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD WHITE. 


21 


his two lean, half-bred collie-dogs, walked off, with a 
very self-righteous back, to spend a chilly night in min- 
istering to the needs of his flock. 

Elizabeth, dazed and weary, stepped out of the car- 
riage, and was aware of the comfortable ruddy light of 
a glowing fire in the well-remembered paneled hall ; 
aware of a glimmer of white cap-lappets and of the 
delicate rose-scent of Mrs. Mainwaring’s garments, as 
that gentle woman, with murmurings of welcome and 
pity, folded her in her arms ; aware that Mr. Mainwar- 
ing stooped and kissed her, saying, “ How d’ye do, my 
dear Lizzie, I’m glad — ” and then that somehow his 
voice broke, and he added a husky ‘‘God bless you,” 
and turned away ; aware of the presence of Buntop, 
the old butler, who took her wraps with a shaky hand, 
gazing at her meanwhile with an appropriate and fune- 
real expression of countenance. 

She was aware, too — for she was in that excited and 
highly nervous condition, of mind and body, in which 
one becomes vividly sensible of everything that hap- 
pens around one, though it may convey no connected 
meaning to the mind — that Mr. Mainwaring had re- 
gained all his wonted clearness of utterance and stateli- 
ness of manner, when he turned to Frank Lorimer and 
thanked him courteously for having brought Elizabeth 
safely home — and that Frank replied with the easy, 
good-humored indifference of a man who is conscious 
that he is being complimented for having performed a 
wholly unavoidable duty. 

“You will come up-stairs at once, dear child ; you 
must be terribly tired,” said Mrs. Mainwaring, drawing 
Elizabeth away. 

Mrs. Mainwaring cultivated the ‘old-fashioned no- 


22 


MES. LOEIMEE. 


tion that people should sit a great deal in their bed- 
rooms when they were in sorrow** Her own greatest 
trouble in life, perhaps, was that she had never had 
what most people would reckon to be any real trouble 
at all. She had never had one of those comfortable 
and ostensible troubles, which give you the right of 
remaining up-stairs and pulling the blinds down. She 
had a feeling that it was almost indecent for Elizabeth 
to have traveled all that long way back to England, so 
early in her widowhood. At least now she should have 
her full privilege of silence and seclusion, and that 
privilege should begin at once. 

“ Pm afraid I must say good-by to you, Elizabeth, 
then,” said Frank Lorimer, coming forward. “I must 
go up to town by the first train to-morrow, if Mr. Main- 
waring will kindly let me — and I dare say you won’t be 
down.” 

Elizabeth turned to him quickly. She suddenly 
perceived that in parting with Frank she was severing 
one of the last visible links that bound her to her hus- 
band, and to the larger and freer life that her marriage 
had brought her. Already she was sensible of the 
gently repressive infiuence that her aunt had always 
exercised over her. She knew intuitively that the Clay- 
brooke atmosphere was exactly the same as ever — mo- 
notonous, unimaginative, well-regulated, insular. She 
knew, also, that she herself was greatly changed ; and 
she trembled in realizing that she must bid farewell to 
the liberty of thought and action that she had enjoyed 
during the last two years. 

Those few words of Mrs. Mainwaring’s had quite 
roused her from the state of exhausted acquiescence in 
which she had arrived. She felt that she was being 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 


23 


appropriated, that a part Avas being given her to play ; 
and she rebelled already, and turned with longing and 
regret to her brother-in-law. 

“ Can’t you stay till the afternoon ? ” she said. I 
don’t want you to go, Frank; you have been very good 
to me.” 

She laid her hand upon his arm. The light of the 
lamp hanging above them fell full on her face, which 
looked unusually pale, framed by her black bonnet. 
Her mouth was tremulous with fatigue and a disposi- 
tion to tears. 

Frank Lorimer, standing there, strong, comfortable, 
and successful, felt a great compassion for this woman, 
with her black garments and sweet, tired eyes. It was 
difficult for him, however, to express his sentiments. It 
would have taken time to put them into appropriate 
words. He wanted his dinner ; and was conscious, too, 
that the Mainwarings might slightly resent — and not 
without reason — his taking upon himself the office of 
Elizabeth’s consoler just at the first moment of her 
coming home. So he stooped toward her, and kissed 
the pale upturned face, saying : 

“ You had much better go and rest quietly now. I 
am afraid I must leave early to-morrow ; but you see it 
will always be easy for me to run down here for a night, 
if you want me.” 

I suppose it is never wholly pleasant to a man get- 
ting on in years to see a younger man than himself kiss 
— however innocently — a pretty woman. It suggests 
contrasts, not always favorable to age. Anyway, this 
little episode jarred somewhat upon the rector ; and he 
ordered Bunton, rather sharply, to show Mr. Lorimer 
his room, as dinner would be very shortly ready. 


24 : 


MKS. LOEIMER. 


While poor Elizabeth rests from the fatigues of her 
journey, in the decent seclusion that her aunt held so 
dear, it may be well to give some more detailed account 
of Mr. Mainwaring’s surroundings, and of his views 
concerning the world in which he lived. 

Claybrooke Rectory is one of those delightful old 
houses that are so common in the south of Midland- 
shire. It is built of sandstone, the soft dull browns and 
greens and yellows of which remind one of the rich 
subdued colors of the falling elm-leaves in autumn. It 
has many gables, and steep-pitched roofs with ridge- 
tiles of well-quarried stone surmounting the old red 
tiling; and many-casemented windows with heavy stone 
mullions. Inside are deep window-seats — ^lovely places 
in which to sit when the low western sun throws long 
shadows from the great round-topped elm-trees across 
the wide, stretching pastures, where sturdy black Welsh 
cattle and herds of red Heref ords ” with stupid white 
faces move slowly through the rich damp grass. The 
house is full of low rooms, opening one out of the 
other ; long passages with quaint little staircases up 
and down ; unexpected nooks and corners ; cupboards 
innumerable ; and a system of attics incomprehensible 
to all but the very oldest inhabitant. It is a dark house, 
perhaps. Low ceilings and black-oak floors and stair- 
ways have a habit, like many eminently respectable 
people and things, of being a trifle gloomy ; but at the 
time of which we speak everything — carpets, curtains, 
and furniture — had all grown old and faded together. 
Everything looked harmonious, if not gay. Everything 
looked calm, serious, and middle-aged. If you found it 
sad and did not like it, well, you could go elsewhere. 
Claybrooke Rectory was far too secure of its social 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AKD WHITE. 25 

position to care very much about pleasing chance vis- 
itors. 

Here Gerald Mainwaring had brought his bride — 
pretty Susan Selford — nearly forty years ago. Here 
they had lived ever since in comfort and prosperity. 

But one thing had been denied them. There had 
been no sound of children’s footsteps racing up and 
down the long passages, or playing on wet half -holidays 
in the great mysterious attics. Ho handsome boy had 
come home to his mother from the first day’s hunting, 
flushed with pride and full of stories of his own re- 
markable prowess and marvelous adventures. Only the 
little brown-faced niece, who had come there almost as 
a baby, grew up in the quiet, stately, old house. 

Mr. Mainwaring loved the child tenderly ; she was 
the daughter of his only brother. Mrs. Mainwaring did 
her duty by Elizabeth ; but there was always the want 
of the tie of common blood between them. They could 
never entirely understand or sympathize with each other. 

The living at Claybrooke, with its various cottages 
and farms, has belonged to the Mainwaring family for 
a length of time which the hardiest local imagination 
scarcely ventures to measure. For a good many gener- 
ations now the eldest son of each successive rector has, 
as a matter of course, chosen the Church for his profes- 
sion, and reigned in due time as squire and clergyman 
of Claybrooke. 

To some minds, in these critical and enlightened 
days, a fact such as this presents food, not only for 
thought, but for lamentation. Mr. Leeper, the Vicar of 
Lowcote, for instance, waxed very wroth in the face of 
such an appalling example of indifference to the higher 
conceptions of the clerical calling. If Claybrooke had 
2 


26 


MES. LOEIMEE. 


been sunk in ignorance, and a by-word for drunkenness 
and open sin, Mr. Leeper would not have been surprised 
— nay, be would merely have traced the natural and 
proper order of cause and effect. It was irritating to him 
to remark that the people were ^at least as orderly and 
respectable as their neighbors ; that the cottages were in 
excellent condition ; and to learn, as he did with a sense 
of bewildered distress, that the church was generally 
weU filled, both at the morning and afternoon services. 
Mr. Leeper’s views, in themselves, were admirable ; but, 
unfortunately, he had never studied the law of ‘‘ excep- 
tivity,” and consequently often suffered from that sense 
of confusion and annoyance which overtakes us when 
we find the facts of life telling dead against some one 
of our most cherished theories. Had you taken the 
votes of the inhabitants of Claybrooke and Lowcote 
regarding the popularity of their respective clergymen, 
I am afraid you would have found — so blind is ordi- 
nary human nature to the true aspects of great Church 
questions — that unimpassioned, old-fashioned, fox-hunt- 
ing Mr. Mainwaring would have gained an immense 
majority over energetic Mr. Leeper — notwithstanding 
the latter’s excellent views on the temperance question, 
the iniquity of outdoor relief, and the urgent necessity 
for diocesan conferences. Mr. Leeper was furnished 
with a complete system for the entire reformation of 
his parish ; but, alas ! it did not seem to recognize the 
advantages of his system, and refused to be reformed. 
Mr. Mainwaring, on the other hand, had no particular 
views. He based all his parochial work on plain com- 
mon-sense, supplemented with port wine and puddings. 
He did not interfere very much with his parishioners ; 
supposing, as he said, that a man earning thirteen shil- 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 27 

lings a week had the same capacity for doing right — 
but possessed the same privilege of doing wrong if he 
chose — which he claimed for himself. His was not a 
very high ideal, possibly, of the priestly office ; hut it 
had one distinct advantage over that of some of his 
neighbors, namely, the important one of being easily 
and successfully reduced to practice. 


CHAPTER HI. 

“ I write of melancholy, by being busie to avoid melancholy.” 

It would be very pleasant to paint Elizabeth Lori- 
mer’s portrait, at this stage of her career, in all the soft 
pathetic shades of color which are generally supposed 
to be appropriate to a first and a deep grief. It would 
be pleasant to draw down our mental blinds — as Mrs. 
Mainwaring proposed to draw down her material ones 
— and contemplate the figure of the young widow in a 
gracefully subdued light. Unfortunately, the graceful 
point of view is so seldom the truest one. In the world 
^vithin us, just as in the world without, there are deserts 
and sandy wastes, nasty bogs, foul lazy waters ringed 
round with rank weeds and coarse rushes, which no 
amount of amiable optimism Concerning the ultimate 
perfectibility of human nature can altogether hide from 
our eyes. 

Elizabeth was but half-awake as yet. She had not 
grasped the deeper meanings of life. In the blush of 
her youthful beauty and perfect, physical health, she 
desired passionately, and before all things, to be happy. 

Her intimacy with Edward Hadley had developed 
within her a longing for homage and admiration. She 
had for the first time realized her power as a woman. 
When he left her so suddenly she not only regretted 


20 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 

him, but she was hungry for more of the pleasant sen- 
sations and strange excitements which his admiration of 
her had produced. She was sore, proud, angry — ^just 
in the state of mind to seize on any change or on any 
new excitement which might present itself. Conse- 
quently she was pleased and flattered by Robert Lori- 
mer’s attentions. ^le lived in a different world to that 
which she had been accustomed t^ She longed after 
all that was beautiful, and artistic, and poetic, in life ; 
and it seemed to her that this man was in a position to 
give her what she longed for. He fascinated her intel- 
ligence, and the possibilities of life with him seemed 
very great and pleasant to her. Many of the noblest 
qualities of her nature found a ready response and sym- 
pathy in him. It needs a long and hard experience, 
sometimes, to enable one to distinguish accurately be- 
tween those emotions which come from the heart and 
those which come from the' head. Poor Elizabeth did 
not realize — like too many noble and pure-minded young 
girls — that the heart is an all-important factor in mar- 
riage. 

Perhaps if Robert Lorimer had lived she would 
have given him in time all the strong and devoted af- 
fection which was latent within her. As it was, before 
she became accustomed to her new life and settled 
down with open eyes to live it, her husband’s illness 
came. Elizabeth had never been brought nearly in 
contact with suffering and death before, and they were 
appalling, almost repulsive, to her. They seemed 
strange, unnatural, hideous. In shrinking from the 
sight of suffering, she shrank a little from the sufferer 
too. She had moments of passionate tenderness toward 
her husband, moments of wild despair, when she real- 


30 


MRS. LORIMER. 


ized that he must really leave her : but generally she 
was merely conscious of a confused sense of fear and 
dumb rebellion against her lot. 

For a while after her arrival at Claybrooke Rectory 
Elizabeth was too tired, both in mind and body, to have 
much will of her own. The momentary flash of feeling, 
which she had experienced when she parted with her 
brother-in-law, died down again quietly. Her chief de- 
sire was for rest ; and she submitted to her aunt Mrs. 
Mainwaring’s small views, and arrangements for her 
good, with considerable docility. 

Claybrooke was very soothing to her. It was asso- 
ciated chiefly with her quiet girlhood ; there was little 
enough to remind her of the troubles and disappoint- 
ments of the last two years. How and again some 
chance word or trivial incident would arouse all the 
storm of feeling that was sleeping within her, and she 
would ask fiercely why all these things had happened to 
her ? Why life, which ought to be so sweet, and which 
she was so capable of enjoying, was so early marred 
and spoiled for her ? She had but raised the cup to her 
lips, when fate had dashed it from her hand, and now 
it lay shattered and broken at her feet, while all her 
promised joy was spilt upon the ground. At times she 
felt almost angry with her dead husband, as though he 
had wantonly left her to battle her way through this 
difiicult world alone. 

Sometimes, on the other hand, she would suffer a 
paroxysm of regret and sorrow. In the night, when 
there was no sound to break the stillness but that of the 
wind moaning about the gables of the old house, or the 
distant bark of a watch-dog at some lone farm-house 
down in the quiet meadows, Elizabeth would start from 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD WHITE. 


31 


her sleep, oppressed by a sudden sense of loneliness and 
terror. She would seem to see, once more, the lofty 
room, shaded with closed shutters from the glare of the 
fierce southern sunlight ; the sister of charity, in her 
dark dress, her smooth, peaceful face, framed by her 
great white cap, moving softly about ; and the sick 
man, who, through long, weary, sunny days and restless 
nights, had lain, with a fine and steadfast courage, facing 
the awful angel of death, and schooling himself to bid 
farewell — not without bitter pain and sorrow, but without 
a murmur of repining — to this kindly and familiar world, 
and to the beautiful young wife whom he loved so well. 

Remembering these things, Elizabeth would stretch 
out longing arms into the stillness and darkness ; and 
then remembering, too, that here that deep debt of love 
could never be repaid, would fling herself down upon 
the pillows again, and sob in lonely misery, till the win- 
dows of her room began to glimmer faintly through the 
chintz curtains, while the still gray dawn broke over 
the damp and misty pastures, and the birds began to 
twitter about the eaves, and comfortable, reassuring, 
domestic sounds told that the old Rectory-house was 
awake once more, and getting ready for the work of 
another quiet, uneventful day. 

But Elizabeth was perhaps a little unfortunately un- 
conventional. She could not play at feeling, because it 
was the pretty thing under the circumstances. When 
these storms of emotion came down upon her, she 
struggled out of them as quickly as she could. She still 
wanted supremely to be happy ; and though she felt 
bruised and wounded, her life was yet whole in her. 
She would pause awhile and take breath ; and then try 
conclusions with the world again. 


32 


MRS. LORIMER. 


As the days lengthened, the rooks became noisy 
over domestic matters in the big elm-trees by the 
church ; the starlings, breaking up the flocks in which 
they had danced and circled together during the winter 
months, began to haunt water-spouts and hollow trees ; 
the earth smelt fresh and sweet under the soft westerly 
wind ; and spring flowers began to cheer the bare 
bosoms of the garden-beds. It was pleasant then to 
Elizabeth to wander out with the Rector over his plow- 
lands and pastures, while Billy and Boxer, the two fox- 
terriers, rushed wildly about, discovering imaginary 
rats and rabbits in every hedge, and Rufus, the brown 
retriever, full of years and dignity, trotted slowly at his 
master’s heels. 

Mr. Main waring had a feeling of delicacy in talking 
to his niece of her own troubles. Politics IVIr. Main- 
waring had never reckoned as very well suited to the 
comprehension of the female mind ; and Church mat- 
ters, with Ritualists splitting up the poor old Establish- 
ment inside, and Rationalists battering it from without, 
seemed to him more of a subject for bitter indignation 
and invective than for ordinary conversation. It hap- 
pened, therefore, that the Rector’s talk was generally 
of an unexciting character, dealing chiefly with the land 
and the crops, interspersed with kindly bits of gossip 
about neighbors and parishioners, and with reminiscences 
of historic runs with the hounds, the memorable taking 
of brooks, or scrambling through impenetrable “ bull- 
finches.” Elizabeth listened gladly to this simple talk. 
It demanded no mental exertion on her part, and yet it 
kept her from more intimate, and from sadder thoughts 
and speculations. The Rector was satisfied with her 
quiet attention. It was pleasant to him to say familiar 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 


33 


tilings wHcli he had often said before. He believed 
that Elizabeth was quite sufficiently amused, and mean- 
while he was glad to do a proper amount of talking, 
without touching on subjects of a serious or controver- 
sial character. Mr. Mainwaring had given up most of 
the problems of life as insoluble ; and he was inclined 
to be a little vexed when anything was said which 
seemed to suggest that they might not be so, and that 
it was the duty of reasonable human beings to struggle 
to find a solution of them. 

It often strikes one as unfortunate that women are 
not more capable of letting each other alone. Mrs. 
Mainwaring was quite incapable of dealing with Eliza- 
beth in the same simple tolerant fashion as the Hector. 
She was not willing to take her niece for granted. She 
wanted agreement of sentiment and assurances of feel- 
ing, which it was not in the nature of the younger 
woman to give. 

Mrs. Mainwaring had, as a girl, unquestioningly ac- 
cepted certain social traditions and formulas. She had 
— owing partly no doubt to her comfortable circum- 
stances and secure position — clung to them tenaciously 
through the course of her life ; and now they ruled her 
completely. If you deprived her of them she would 
have felt like a lost child, uncertain what to do and 
where to turn. The foundations being shaken, the 
righteous — as represented by Mrs. Mainwaring — would 
have been in most doleful case. She was gentle, tender- 
hearted, and calmly devout ; but her imagination was 
small, and her sympathies were narrow. She was lov- 
able ; but it was impossible to deny that she was rather 
limited. Elizabeth alarmed, distressed, and surprised 
her at times. Elizabeth’s faults and temptations were 


34 : 


MRS. LORIMER. 


incomprehensible to her. She was always sensible that 
Elizabeth did not repeat her experiences, or fulfill her 
ideal under given circumstances. There had always 
been a want of common ground on which she and her 
niece could meet safely ; and the little space which had 
formerly existed seemed to have dwindled considerably 
in extent since Elizabeth’s marriage. 

When the first strangeness and pathos of her re- 
turn began to wear off, Mrs. Mainwaring grew a little 
dissatisfied. She was unconsciously on the watch for 
her niece’s failings and shortcomings. Unfortunately, 
Elizabeth was not a great diplomatist, and had a tend- 
ency toward a certain directness of thought and speech, 
which often caused her to pluck, rather rudely, at the 
conventional wrappings with which her aunt decently 
covered her own convictions and desireSi 

One afternoon, about six weeks after Elizabeth had 
come back to Claybrooke, she and Mrs. Mainwaring 
were together in the pretty little paneled sitting-room 
up-stairs, in which the latter lady generally spent her 
mornings. There Mrs. Mainwaring made up tidy ac- 
counts, and ordered her household and her husband’s 
parish with dignified kindness and unrufiled compos- 
ure. 

Elizabeth was sitting in one of the deep window-seats, 
her hands resting idly in her lap. Out-of-doors every- 
thing seemed to be feeling the pleasant influences of the 
spring, and awakening in hope and freshness to a new 
lease of life. The elms looked soft and bloomy with 
swelling buds ; the pastures were green with the spring- 
ing grass ; the sober midland landscape lay sleeping in 
the pleasant sunshine. Away among the trees in the 
distance, on the other side of the brook, Elizabeth 


A SKETCH IlSr BLACK AND WHITE. 


35 


could see the quaint, old, red-brick chimneys of the 
Manor-House. Her mind was full of gentle regret, and 
yet of hope. At one-and-twenty one can easily, in 
fancy at least, call a new world into existence to restore 
the balance of the old. 

Mrs. Mainwaring, with her pretty, faded face, sit- 
ting knitting by the fire so serenely — Mrs. Mainwaring, 
who had never known a tangible trouble in all her life 
— was perhaps really more deserving of pity and sym- 
pathy than this beautiful young woman, with her obvi- 
ous sorrows and her heavy widow’s gown. 

‘‘ Smart told me the other day. Aunt Susan,” said 
Elizabeth, still looking out over the sunny country, 
“ that Miss Dadley died last year. I hadn’t heard it. 
What has been done with the Manor-House ? ” 

“It is an unpleasant subject,” answered Mrs. Main- 
waring, slowly. “ Mr. Dadley behaved very strangely, 
considering the length of time the place had been in 
the family. He sold everything.” 

“ I wonder why,” said Elizabeth. 

“Oh! nobody knows,” replied Mrs. Mainwaring. 
“ Sir Frederic Melvin bought all the land, with the 
exception of one or two fields adjoining Garner’s farm, 
which your uncle took. But everything was sold. The 
very chairs and tables we had known for the last thirty 
years — everything went. There was a want of consid- 
eration and proper feeling about it,” added Mrs. Main- 
waring, severely. “ Your uncle was very much annoyed.” 

Elizabeth turned and gazed out of window again. 

“ Have you heard anything of Edward Dadley, 
lately. Aunt Susan ? ” she said. 

Mrs. Mainwaring glanced up quickly from her knit- 
ting : but she could only see Elizabeth’s profile as a 


MRS. LORIMER. 


30 

silhouette against a background of window-panes, and 
in that position it was impossible to gain any idea of 
her expression. 

“ No ! nothing at all,” she answered, quietly. 

“ Ah ! ” responded Elizabeth. 

It would have been difficult to her to say, at that 
moment, whether she felt relieved or a little disappoint- 
ed. She sat quite still for a minute or two without 
turning her head ; then, getting up, she walked across 
to where her aunt sat knitting by the fire, and knelt 
down before her on the rug. 

“Dear Aunt Susie,” she said, “I want you to bo 
very kind, and do me a great favor.” 

Mrs. Mainwaring only smiled ; she had a vague 
forecasting that Elizabeth was going to ask her to do 
something which she would not the least like to do. 
She also wished that Elizabeth would sit down on a 
chair, like an ordinary person, when she asked favors. 
Mrs. Mainwaring objected to seeing people kneel, ex- 
cept in church or at prayers. The position seemed to 
her a little exaggerated. 

“ Will you ask Frank Lorimer and his wife to come 
down here for a week at Easter ? ” Elizabeth went on. 
“ They could get away from London then, I think, and 
I should be so glad to see them.” 

Mrs. Mainwaring’s smile died away. She did not 
in the least wish to accede to her niece’s request ; but 
it was decidedly awkward to refuse it point-blank. 

“ I know you don’t care to have strangers staying 
in the house,” continued Elizabeth ; “ but I am very 
fond of them — I mean of the Lorimers ; and Frank was 
wonderfully good to me, you know, during that sad 
time abroad.” 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 37 

Mrs. Mainwaring waited a moment, wliile she fin- 
gered her knitting-pins a little nervously. 

“I don’t know, Elizabeth, what to say,” she an- 
swered, at last ; “but I am afraid your uncle would 
not quite like it.” 

Mrs. Mainwaring found it tiresomely difficult to say 
what she wanted to say, with Elizabeth kneeling there 
and looking up at her so sweetly. 

“ Dear me, why not ? ” exclaimed Elizabeth. 

“Your uncle and Mr. Lorimer did not get on very 
well together the night you came home. They differed 
about politics, I believe,” answered Mrs. Mainwaring, 

evasively. 

“Dear me,” said Elizabeth again. 

She got up off the rug and stood opposite to her 
aunt. She felt hurt and annoyed at Mrs. Mainwaring’s 
manner. 

“ It must have been a very serious difference of opin- 
ion,” she added, “if it should be sufficient to make 
Uncle Gerald really object to Frank’s coming here.” 

“In point of fact,” said Mrs. Mainwaring, looking 
down at her knitting, but feeling far more conifortable 
and self-possessed now that her niece was no longer 
kneeling so close to her — “ in point of fact, Elizabeth, 
Ml’. Lorimer is not quite the sort of person we have 
been accustomed to have here.” 

“ Possibly not,” said Elizabeth, willfully mistaking 
her meaning. “ This neighborhood is not very brilliant. 
Clever men are not very common about here.” 

“I was not speaking merely of this neighborhood, 
Elizabeth,” said Mrs. Mainwaring, looking up with some 
dignity. 

She would not condescend to define more particular- 


88 


MKS. LORIMER. 


ly the society in which she had always moved : but the 
memory of many generations of Selfords crowded into 
her mind. Everybody knew who the Selfords were, 
and knew — or ought to know — the sort of society they 
had always lived in. 

Elizabeth’s face flushed painfully. Her pride was 
touched, and her loyalty toward her husband demanded 
that she should speak. She waited a moment, for she 
found it a little difficult to control her utterance. 

‘‘You forget. Aunt Susan, that Frank Lorimer is my 
husband’s brother,” she said at last. 

Mrs. Mainwaring winced. It was almost coarse, she 
thought, to put the matter in that light ; but there was 
a large fund of obstinacy in this fragile, gentle-looking, 
little lady’s nature. She had not the smallest disposi- 
tion to haul down her colors because Elizabeth had not 
the delicacy to perceive how much out of place her last 
observation was. 

“ Mr. Lorimer was a barrister,” said Mrs. Mainwar- 
ing. 

“And Frank is a newspaper editor,” rejoined Eliza- 
beth, speaking as quietly as she could. “But the two 
men were brothers. Aunt Susan ; and you can hardly 
mean to imply that my husband’s claims ” — she paused 
a moment — “ to be admitted into the society you have 
been accustomed to depended upon his profession.” 

Mrs. Mainwaring stood up too ; she was extremely 
pained and distressed. 

“This conversation has taken a most unfortunate 
turn,” she said. “ I think you must perceive yourself 
how unbecoming it is, Elizabeth, under present circum- 
stances. I really can not discuss the question further. 
I must entreat you to let it drop.” 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 


89 


And she slowly and severely rolled up her long strip 
of knitting. 

Elizabeth had generally repented after one of these 
final rebukes of her aunt’s. She had generally been con- 
victed of sin — ^more from, habit, perhaps, than from any- 
thing else — and had humbled herself : but this time 
something deeper than her own personal pride was 
touched. All her better nature was roused in defense 
of her husband’s memory. Mrs. Mainwaring, by im- 
plication at least, had slighted him ; and Elizabeth bit- 
terly and fiercely resented the slight. She did not 
answer, but remained standing near the fire, with her 
eyes fixed upon the fioor. 

Mrs. Mainwaring finished rolling up her work in si. 
lence and moved away. Just as she reached the door 
she turned and said in her usual quiet even tones : 

“ I am going to drive over to Slowby this afternoon, 
Elizabeth. I have ordered the closed carriage, so that 
there would be no objection to your coming, if you 
cared to do so.” 

‘‘ No, thank you,” answered Elizabeth, shortly. I 
prefer remaining at home.” 

She was determined to make no step, this time, 
toward a reconciliation with her Aunt Susan. She 
went hastily to her own room, and, throwing on a hat 
and jacket, went out quickly by a side-door into the 
garden, being careful to avoid a meeting with Mrs. 
Mainwaring, for whom the carriage was waiting in front 
of the house. 

There is a broad walk leading out of the Rectory 
garden, at Claybrooke, toward the church. It is di- 
vided from the main road, which runs parallel to it, by 
a belt of trees and underwood ; on the other side is a 


4:0 


MRS. LORIMER. 


sunk fence, beyond wbicb stretch the pastures, sloping 
down toward the brook that strayed through the valley, 
about half a mile away. In the winter this walk is 
sheltered from the bitter east winds by the belt of 
wood, and in summer pleasantly shaded by the over- 
hanging trees ; while to the westward, across the sunk 
fence, the view — such as it is — is wholly uninterrupted. 

Elizabeth had dreamed many pretty dreams, during 
her quiet uneventful girlhood, pacing up and down this 
walk, while her eyes wandered over the still green coun- 
try, and her thoughts wandered far into the coming 
years, colored by bright hopes and charming fancies. 
Her steps turned instinctively toward it now, though 
her hopes were no longer very bright, and though real- 
ities had arisen, like Pharaoh’s “lean kine,” and de- 
voured all her fair fancies one by one. 

She was hurt and angry ; full of tenderness toward 
her dead husband and toward his family. She knev/ 
that Mrs. Mainwaring had not spoken without thought 
and intention. The narrow groove along which life at 
Claybrooke moved already began to worry Elizabeth. 
She had already observed that many opinions which 
she expressed were unpalatable to her aunt ; that the 
latter feared she was breaking free, in a somewhat dan- 
gerous manner, from received doctrines ; that she was 
too anxious to think for herself. She knew that Mrs. 
Mainwaring resented all eccentricity, all unusualness. 
Elizabeth suspected that her aunt accused the Frank 
Lorimers of encouraging her to take her own way, and 
that their influence was considered undesirable. 

She stood still in the middle of the walk. The 
rooks were flying, in a long black line, home to their 
half -made nests in the elms by the church ; the chil- 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 


41 


dren sliouted at their play in the village street ; and 
the thin spring sunshine lay softly on the face of the 
green meadows. Away across the brook Elizabeth could 
still see the twisted chimneys of the old Manor-House 
above the trees. 

For a moment the thought came to her of how dif- 
ferent all her life would have been if she had married 
her first love — the good-tempered, fresh-faced young 
squire — and had settled down to the quiet life of the 
country, with its simple round of duties and pleasures. 
The quiet country life would have been pleasant enough 
to her two years ago : but now she had had experience 
of another and more exciting sort of living. Elizabeth 
was very young still. Though she had suffered, though 
she had been cruelly disappointed, she had not yet said 
her ‘‘ vanitas vanitatum.” She longed after all that is 
included in that magic word, culture — after books, and 
music, and art ; after fanciful furnishings and beautiful 
colors. She believed that the ifiiilosopher’s stone was 
still to be found ; and she longed, poor child, to set out 
in quest of it. She owed her aunt and uncle a debt for 
their love and care of her ; but her loyalty to her hus- 
band ranged itself alongside her desire for beauty and 
knowledge, against her simple duty to those who had 
stood to her in the place of parents. 

She could see that remaining at Claybrooke implied 
complete submission to Mrs. Mainwaring’s small moral 
and social code. When the time of her mourning 
should be over, there was no more exhilarating pros- 
pect before her than dreary dinners with local mag- 
nates ; solemn afternoon calls with Mrs. Mainwaring ; 
visits to the schools and to certain cottages ; occasion- 
ally the holding of a stall at some bazaar for the resto- 


42 


MBS. LOKIMEK. 


ration of a neighboring church ; now and again a weari- 
some garden-party. Of conversation, none worth the 
name — ^no change, no new interests, nothing hut the 
eminently “ trivial round ’’ and the remarkably “ com- 
mon task.” Meanwhile Elizabeth seemed to see herself 
growing older, and grayer, and duller, as one quiet year 
slipped away after another. Now she rebelled against 
the stagnation of Claybrooke ; five or ten years hence 
she would be accustomed to it — nay, at last she might 
even come to like it. 

She was capable of exciting herself very greatly 
with her own speculations. The picture she had called 
up of her future in the still, sleepy, midland village was 
intolerable to her. She desired desperately to get away 
and cast in her lot with the Frank Lorimers. She saw 
clearly that no middle course would be possible for 
long — she would have, sooner or later, to make her 
choice between her own and her husband’s relations. 

As she stood full of uncertainty and of conflicting 
feelings, in the spring sunshine, the Rector — riding 
home over the fields from visiting some outlying cot- 
tages — stopped his comfortable fat cob on the other 
side of the sunk fence and looked at her. 

“ Ah ! Lizzie,” he said, smiling a little sadly, it is 
very pleasant to see you moving about this old place 
again. I am growing an old man, my dear, and I like 
a beautiful young face to look at.” 


CHAPTER IV. 

‘‘ Sir,” he said, “ I take stock in everything that concerns anybody.’ 


Mbs. Mainwaeing, meanwhile, rumbling along in 
the closed carriage toward Slowhj, was as unhappy as 
a person supported by a strong sense of accomplished 
duty can well he. The coachman’s livery fitted excel- 
lently — it was quite pleasant to behold his back — the 
horses trotted cheerily along the broad high-road ; the 
country looked pretty in the afternoon sunshine ; the 
shopkeepers in Slowby, moreover, would hurry with 
unfeigned satisfaction to their doors, anxious to supply 
any quantity of any article that Mrs. Mainwaring might 
desire, when they saw her carriage stopping in High 
Street. All these things were wont to yield her a gentle 
sense of gratification, for, notwithstanding her tradi- 
tions, Mrs. Mainwaring was fundamentally a very sim- 
ple-minded person. She enjoyed her own respectable 
and dignified position, and still more she enjoyed the 
recognition of her respectability and dignity by others. 
It is distinctly agreeable to be persuaded that the world 
in general shares in our own good opinion of ourselves. 
To-day the worthy lady ought, surely, to have felt even 
more than usually serene and satisfied, for she had got 
her own way. She knew that, after their late conversa- 
tion, Elizabeth’s pride would prevent her making any 


44 


MRS. LORIMER. 


more inconyenient suggestions respecting a visit fro n 
the Frank Lorimers. Mrs. Main waring had fought and 
won the little battle very successfully. She had her 
desire ; hut, alas ! together with her desire, she had 
leanness withal in her soul. 

She believed, and rightly, that she loved Elizabeth 
more truly than she loved any other human being ex- 
cept her husband, Gerald Mainwaring ; but Mrs. Main- 
waring was not a very acute thinker, and had never 
perceived that she loved, not Elizabeth as she really 
Vv^as, but Elizabeth as she might be — ^if that strong- 
natured young woman renounced her individuality, and 
submitted herself entirely to her aunt’s guidance. She 
loved, in fact, a phantom Elizabeth of her own creating, 
and was perpetually distressed and annoyed with the 
real Elizabeth, who bore but a slight resemblance to her 
ideal. Mrs. Mainwaring just now was feeling acutely 
pained at having had such a disturbing scene with her 
niece ; and was confused and bewildered by the way in 
which Elizabeth had spoken, and by the view which she 
had taken of the matter. She could not comprehend 
how any right-minded person could see things from a 
different standpoint to her own. 

Mrs. Mainwaring had never been entirely satisfied 
with Elizabeth’s marriage. She suspected a want of 
great-grandfathers in the Lorimer family. She did not 
go as far as her maid Smart, who, being blessed with 
aristocratic ideas, had suggested, on hearing of Robert 
Lorimer’s death, that “ she hoped now Miss Elizabeth 
would take her maiden name again.” She did not 
certainly go as far as that : but she had cherished a 
silent hope that the connection would be quietly dropped, 
and that Elizabeth would come to regard her marriage 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 45 

merely as a slightly unfortunate episode, and adopt the 
Mainwaring and Selford view of things in general. 

Mrs. Mainwaring could not ignore the fact that 
Frank Lorimer edited a newspaper. No one whom she 
knew had ever married a newspaper editor, or had 
taken to that sort of employment as a profession. 
Some people can accept no fact without a precedent. 
Then, too, from hints that Elizabeth had dropped, Mrs. 
Mainwaring feared that the Frank Lorimers knew all 
sorts of queer people — writers, artists, musicians, actors. 
People who live by their brains and their talents, instead 
of on their means, are always a little doubtful. Mrs. 
Mainwaring associated such persons with lodgings and 
tinned meat, and with an absence of horses and car- 
riages, and servants with long and admirable personal 
characters. 

This good lady’s ideas of art did not carry her be- 
yond portraits painted by Gainsborough and Sir Joshua ; 
and it is to be feared that even they were interesting 
to her more as testifying to the high respectability of 
the families whose deceased members they so flatter- 
ingly represented, than as examples of the great mas- 
ters’ work. In the matter of music, she was vexed if 
the village choir sang flagrantly out of time or tune on 
Sunday in church ; and she liked to hear a ballad given 
in the mild and wholly unimaginative way in which 
young ladies and gentlemen do perform ballads, when 
possessed by a praiseworthy desire to relieve the te- 
dium of the long evening which usually follows a seven- 
o’clock country dinner-party ; any touch of true passion 
or even of true pathos would have alarmed and con- 
fused her with a suggestion of slight impropriety. 
From the religious point of view Mrs. Mainwaring had 


46 


MRS. LORIMER. 


no .objection to the stage : but she recoiled from the 
idea of publicity, and could not conceive how really 
pure women, or high-minded men, could be willing to 
earn their bread by representing fictitious characters 
and ill-regulated emotions before a large number of spec- 
tators. In all ages, I suppose, there have been a good 
many minds to which the notion of a paid amuser of 
the public has appeared contemptible and degrading. 
As for Mrs. Mainwaring, she failed to perceive any 
very distinct social difference between one of th,e great 
leaders of the dramatic profession and the strolling ac- 
robat, with his stock-in-trade of a little carpet and pair 
of spangled tights, who will go through a series of pain- 
ful contortions on the dusty pavement, in the hope of 
gleaning a meager harvest of peradventure pennies 
from the passers-by. These being her views, it cer- 
tainly was not very surprising that Mrs. Mainwaring 
should reckon it almost her duty to do her best to wean 
Elizabeth from relations, whose standpoint was so radi- 
cally different to her own. Yet that afternoon, as she 
drove over to Slowby, Mrs. Mainwaring was oppressed 
with a lurking fear that Elizabeth might be alienated 
from her in the process. Life is very difficult some- 
times, and human beings very hard to manage, even 
when we are entirely sure that our intentions are excel- 
lent and the end we propose to attain eminently desir- 
able. 

But it was not merely upon her near relations that 
poor Elizabeth was fated to have rather a confusing 
effect. 

The neighbors, who had called when she first re- 
turned, with inquiries — always met by Bunton with the 
time-honored and enigmatical reply, that “ Mrs. Lorimer 


47 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 

was as well as could be expected ’’—now began to come 
to Claybrooke Rectory with a distinct intention of 
seeing the young widow and judging for themselves of 
her appearance and state of mind. I^^ot only were her 
present circumstances decidedly romantic and interest- 
ing, but she had, so it was said, during the last twelve 
months, wandered over half the countries of Southern 
Europe — local imaginations had considerably extended 
the area of Elizabeth’s peregrinations. Most of the 
natives of Midlandshire feel a little insecure out of 
their own county, and would appear, for some occult 
reason, to have a considerable suspicion of foreign 
travel. They regard those persons who indulge in it as 
remarkably daring and slightly dangerous at the same 
time. Paris is immoral, Italy priest-ridden, Germany 
atheistical, Switzerland absurdly mountainous and un- 
doubtedly a bad hunting country — we all know these 
things in Midlandshire, and consequently most of us 
stay at home. At the same time, when any adventurous 
wight does return from foreign parts, we are sensible 
of a certain flutter of excitement, which we do our best 
to conceal under a smiling and slightly contemptuous 
manner. It follows, therefore, that Elizabeth not only 
claimed attention in virtue of her recent bereavement, 
but that she was looked upon as a sort of spiritual 
daughter of Christopher Columbus and of Captain 
Cook. 

Lady Melvin, stout, dignified, and kindly, drove 
over in state from Melvin’s Keeping, and indulged in 
many well-intentioned commonplaces, which she wished 
to be sympathetic and consolatory, but which were, in 
fact, extremely tedious. 

Mrs. Adnitt, the wife of the squire of Lowcote, 


48 


MPwS. LORIMEPv. 


came too, desiring sincerely to say everything that was 
becoming and appropriate to the occasion : but, out of 
the fullness of the heart the mouth will speak, and she 
soon exhausted her stock of sentiments regarding Eliz- 
abeth’s sad loss, and began pouring a catalogue of the 
sins and offenses of that much-misconstrued gentleman, 
Mr. Leeper, into Mrs. Mainwaring’s not unwilling ears. 
Mr. Leeper actually wanted what he called “ free and 
open sittings.” Imagine her, Mrs. Adnitt, and the 
Squire getting rather late to church some Sunday 
morning — the Squire did certainly take some time over 
his breakfast, and liked, too, to go down to the stables 
and just have a “ look round ” before starting for church, 
so they were sometimes a little late — ^imagine, then, 
their arriving and finding Jones, the Radical baker, who 
openly refused his vote to the Conservative candidate 
at the last general election, calmly established in their 
time-honored family pew. Such a possibility was alarm- 
ing and distressing in a high degree ; and yet obviously 
such a thing might easily happen if the sittings were 
all free. Mr. Leeper, like many other prophets, had but 
a scant amount of honor in his own country. 

The Harbages called another day. They drove over, 
a party of six, in a hired vehicle — a hybrid kind of 
wagonette, with a distant suggestion of a carrier’s cart 
about it — ^blessed with a canary-colored body and wheels. 
This machine is much patronized in the district around 
Highthorne by those of the inhabitants whose circum- 
stances are not sufficiently affluent to admit of their 
keeping a horse and carriage of their own. Mr. Har- 
bage always drove ; that is to say, he held the reins and 
fished gently at the horse’s back with the whip. His 
driving in no way resembled that of Jehu the son of 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 


49 


!Nimshi, and the wagonette proceeded very slowly over 
the face of the earth. But Mrs. Harhage made a great' 
point of her husband’s driving^ all the same; for she 
was possessed with a strong desire to impress the pass- 
ers-by with a sense of her entire ownership of the ve- 
hicle. This was a very innocent fraud, deceiving no- 
body, inasmuch as the yellow body and wheels are 
perfectly well known to every one on that side of the 
county : but it afforded Mrs. Harbage a little anxious 
satisfaction, and saved an extra shilling for the driver, 
and as it merely caused other people some kindly amuse- 
ment, perhaps it was, on the whole, as good an arrange- 
ment as most other arrangements in this piecemeal 
world. 

Mrs. Harbage, leaving the two younger girls in the 
carriage when the party at last reached Claybrooke 
Rectory, proceeded into the drawingrroom with her 
eldest daughter and Emily, her husband mildly bringing 
up the rear. 

Mrs. Harbage had driven over from Highthorne that 
day, cheered by a sense that the mighty had fallen, and 
that she was going to have the delicate privilege of see- 
ing them lie prostrate. She had, indeed, brought Emily 
on purpose that that dear girl might realize all the sor- 
row and disaster she had escaped by remaining in a state 
of single blessedness. But Elizabeth Lorimer looked so 
serene and handsome, notwithstanding the melancholy 
suggestions of her deep mourning dress ; the drawing- 
room at the Rectory was so redolent of solid comfort ; 
the tea so excellent ; the cream and cake so rich ; Bun- 
ton so dignified and condescending in helping the ladies 
to climb down from, and later to struggle up into the 
wagonette — that poor Mrs. Harbage began to be doubt- 
3 


50 


MRS. LORIMER. 


ful whether the mighty had fallen after all, and whether 
Emily really had, on the whole, so very much cause for 
thanksgiving. The thought of an unpaid coal-mer- 
chant’s hill and butcher’s book haunted her mind : and 
a sense of the curiously unequal division of the goods 
of this world oppressed her spirit. It may be difficult 
for the rich to enter into the kingdom of heaven : but. 
experience had taught Mrs. Harbage long ago that it is 
often difficult for the poor — harassed by care and worry, 
and weary with work — to find time to think about the 
kingdom of heaven at all. 

Other friends and neighbors called too ; and mostly 
went away with the impression that Elizabeth Lorimer 
was, perhaps, a trifle better than could be expected ; ” 
and that she was quite unlikely to drain dry their stock 
of amiable surface sympathy by making too great de- 
mands upon it. Perhaps they were just a little annoyed, 
as they had counted on the circumstances of their sev- 
eral visits to Claybrooke Rectory for supplying them, 
both with a distinct emotion, and with a subject for 
much subsequent conversation. The ladies, indeed, per- 
mitted themselves a mild revenge, by hinting at Eliza- 
beth’s apparent insensibility to her position ; and their 
ruffled plumes were by no means smoothed down by the 
fact that husbands, brothers, and sons — who somewhat 
against their will had been inveigled into paying this 
visit of condolence — invariably remarked on the way 
home that Mrs. Lorimer certainly was, taken all round, 
one of the handsomest women that they — the speakers 
— had ever seen.” It is not a little trying in a very 
quiet neighborhood to be disappointed of an emotion : 
but how greatly is that disappointment embittered, when 
the very person who has caused it is pronounced, by 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 


51 


those whose views of female beauty are of peculiar im- 
portance to you, to be an unusually pretty woman ! 

Elizabeth, though embarrassed and slightly irritated 
at being thus regarded in the light of a show which all 
the country-side thought it had a right to come and 
gaze at, was behaving with considerable self-control and 
moderation. Mr. Mainwaring’s little speech had moved 
her, and had laid the rebellious spirit within her at least 
for a time. She studiously avoided any allusion to their 
late controversy, with her aunt ; and though both women 
were sensible that there was a certain want of cordi- 
ality in their relations, that they had taken a step apart, 
and must look at each other in futui’e through the sepa- 
rating medium of a distinct difference of opinion, things 
were going on very fairly well on the whole. One day, 
certainly, there seemed some danger of a sharp collis- 
ion ; but they both were wanting in the courage neces- 
sary for a real battle. 

As the warm weather came on, Elizabeth began to 
have a strong distaste for her heavy, black-stuff dresses, 
with their interminable crape trimmings. They seemed 
so conventional and unimaginative, so hot and dusty, 
altogether such a blot on the fair, hopeful spring-time, 
with its delicate scents and colors and promise of ra- 
diant blossoms. 

Elizabeth had a very limited belief in “the right 
thing.” She was a little disposed to tilt at custom, as 
Don Quixote tilted at the proverbial windmills ; and 
with the same result. For custom, like the windmills, 
would certainly stand firm, while poor Elizabeth, like 
the gallant though fantastic knight, would only get an 
unpleasant roll in the dust for her pains. In time expe- 
rience teaches most of us that custom is, on the whole, 


52 


MES. LORIMER. 


wise in her verdicts : but all vigorous and generous 
young souls have to purchase their conviction of her 
wisdom at the cost of a few tumbles — humbling, no 
doubt, in the present, yet very salutary in the long-run. 

Elizabeth argued thus : not only did the crape-cov- 
ered gowns weary her, but surely her husband, who de- 
lighted to see her enhance her natural beauty by wearing 
graceful and becoming garments, would have been the 
first to entreat her to lay off these ugly conventional 
trappings of woe. Surely she did not need these com- 
monplace, almost vulgar, outward signs of sorrow to 
keep memory green, and remind her of that jDathetic 
parting down by the purple Mediterranean ? These un- 
sightly stuffy dresses made her think no whit more ten- 
derly of the dead ; while they seemed to her painfully 
out of harmony with the awakening beauty of nature, 
which Robert Lorimer had loved so well. 

She had pulled the offending dresses out on to her 
bed one morning, and was standing over them, in com- 
pany with Smart, her aunt’s maid, regarding them with 
an air of strong distaste, when Mrs. Mainwaring herself 
—with her neat little figure, delicately pink cheeks, and 
spotless white cap with its waving lappets — came quietly 
into the room. She stopped and looked at the' pile of 
black garments with just a faint suggestion of surprise. 

Ellizabeth was sensible of a restraining influence di- 
rectly. ^ Mrs. Mainwaring’s gentle astonishment seemed 
the visible symbol of all those recognized proprieties of 
life respecting “mourning,” which Elizabeth was just 
proposing to violate. Mrs. Mainwaring’s surprise im- 
plied the surprise of all respectable and well-regulated 
persons. Individually, she was not very alarming, per- 
haps ; but, as the representative of a widely-accepted 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 


53 


and deeply-clierislied idea, she became very formidable, 
and Elizabeth found herself shifting her ground and 
moderating her desires with a rapidity which she had to 
admit was both humiliating and amusing. 

“ I have been looking through all my clothes with 
Smart, Aunt Susan,” she said. “ They are so dreadfully 
hot and heavy, that I must have something done to 
them.” 

The pink tint deepened a little in Mrs. Mainwaring’s 
cheeks ; she had a painful sense that she was on the 
edge of one of those struggles in which her love of 
her niece, and her love of tradition, must meet in battle 
array. 

‘‘You can not, of course, think of making any 
change in your mourning so soon, my dear,” she said, 
with gentle decision. 

“ These gowns are fearfully hot, now that the 
weather is getting so warm,” Elizabeth observed, avoid- 
ing any more direct reply. 

Mrs. Mainwaring turned over one or two of the 
dresses slowly. She wished to appear open to convic- 
tion. She knew by experience that mere assertions car- 
ried very little weight with Elizabeth : but, it was so 
utterly obvious to her mind that within six months of a 
husband’s death no amount of crape could be too great 
to testify to his widow’s decent grief, that she found it 
impossible to sympathize in her niece’s evident desire 
for some modification of her costume. Mrs. Mainwar- 
ing was as far from questioning the dictates of custom, 
as she was from questioning the existence of the sun in 
the pale spring sky outside. 

At last she said, looking rather at Smart than at 
Elizabeth : 


54 : 


MES. LOEIMER. 


“Dresses of this description are always. worn for 
at least one year under such circumstances, are they 
not ? ” 

Smart, having a strong desire to remain neutral, and 
run no risk of offending either of the contending par- 
ties, pulled the dresses about a little, with a critical and 
professional air, hut wisely said nothing. 

“ Anyway,” observed Elizabeth, with a touch Of im- 
patience, “ I must get something thinner for the sum- 
mer. I should half die of heat if I wore these things 
all through the hot weather.” 

“ The stuffs are very thick, ma’am,” remarked 
Smart, putting in a timid oar. 

Mrs. Mainwaring stood quite still and silent, feeling 
most unnecessarily unhappy. To persons of her rather 
narrow nature trivial matters are of almost dreadful 
importance — a question of a little more or less crape 
will often be more painfully agitating to such a woman 
than the fall of an empire is to a philosopher. She felt 
acutely, too, that Smart was deserting her meanly and 
going over to the enemy ; that she stood alone in the 
defense of sacred custom and propriety. To some peo- 
ple it is infinitely depressing to be in the minority. 

“I think,” said Elizabeth, suddenly struck by a 
happy idea, “ I’ll write to Fanny and ask her to get 
me some summer things— thin, you know, and yet suit- 
able.” 

“Fanny?” inquired Mrs. Mainwaring, looking up. 

“Yes, Fanny Lorimer — my sister-in-law,” answered 
Elizabeth, a little defiantly. “She dresses admirably. 
Aunt Susan. She would find me exactly the right 
thing.” 

“I should have thought it would have been wiser 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AJTD WHITE. 


55 


to trust to your own taste in this matter — or mine,” said 
Mrs. Mainwaring with mild dignity. 

But, in any case, the gowns must have been made 
up in London,” answered Elizabeth, ‘‘ so it is really 
simpler to get some one to choose them who is on the 
6i>ot.” 

“ There is an excellent dressmaker in Slowby, Eliza- 
beth,” said Mrs. Mainwaring, with a certain finality in 
her tone. 

Smart was present, and she would not let this dis- 
cussion degenerate into anything approaching to wran- 
gling. She had stated her own opinion ; she had in- 
dicated the right road to Elizabeth. Mrs. Mainwaring 
felt that circumstances were against her ; had she been 
alone with her niece, she thought it would have been 
her duty to say more. As it was, she determined at 
least to save her own dignity. She had protested ; now 
she washed her hands of the matter, and retired in good 
order from the scene of the fray ; leaving to Elizabeth 
— along with her rather doubtful victory — a sense of 
discomfort and indecision, which resulted in her not 
writing to Fanny Lorimer, but putting on the heavy 
gowns again and wearing them, with what patience she 
might, to the end of the summer. 

This little episode did not tend to increase the lim- 
ited cordiality existing between the two ladies. Eliza- 
beth might submit outwardly ; but her spirit remained 
free and uninfluenced. Each of these differences of 
opinion helped to clear away the mists of habit from 
her eyes. She ceased to take Mrs. Mainwaring for 
granted ; she stood outside her, and looked at her, and 
judged her. The judgments of the young are cruelly 
just. They have not learned by experience of life, and 


56 


MRS. LORIMER. 


experience of their own failings and shortcomings, to 
temper justice with mercy. They cause the unhappy 
culprit to stand in the full glare of the untempered sun- 
light, and notice every spot, and blemish, and rent, with 
terrible accuracy. The young are charming, and beau- 
tiful, and poetic, and the sight of them stirs our more 
languid pulses with the memory of past joys and hopes ; 
but, when it comes to judgment and criticism of con- 
duct, in pity, give us the tried hard- worked man or wom- 
an, who has fainted and wrestled, and through much 
tribulation has gained a touch of the divine compassion 
that is not “ extreme to mark what is done amiss.” 

It is piteous to think that matters of crape and black 
stuff, trifles of etiquette or of social standing, may loosen 
the cords of love and embitter life far more than great 
sorrows. But truly the rubs and v/orries of every day, 
differences of temperament, little misunderstandings 
which almost inevitably arise between persons of two 
different generations, are enough to cloud the sunshine 
and turn the milk of human kindness very sour. These 
wretched trifles — hardly deserving of a moment’s seri- 
ous consideration — have the power, in course of time, 
of changing human relationships, from the deepest 
source of joy, into a perfect flood of discomfort. It is 
not without a certain truth that Cupid has been always 
figured with a broad band over his pretty eyes. Yf hen 
he takes off that band, and looks the object of his devo- 
tion fairly in the face, he is apt to become more of a 
critic than a lover ; and the critic has always a savor of 
contempt in his composition. 

The last two years of her life, which had been spent 
with a man her equal in intelligence, and her superior 
in culture and knowledge of the world, had removed 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD WHITE. 


57 


the band from Elizabeth’s eyes as far as Mrs. Main war- 
ing was concerned, and she regarded that lady’s con- 
duct and action with rather unfortunate clearness. She 
had ceased to believe in Mrs. Mainwaring’s small social 
code. She knew that there was a great section of the 
world to which Mrs. Mainwaring would appear very 
provincial and unimportant. She had learned that all 
social judgments are relative rather than absolute ; and 
her aunt’s belief in the infallibility of her own “ set ” 
was very irritating to Elizabeth. With the logical in- 
tolerance of youth and inexperience, she went further 
still. Having discovered that Mrs. Mainwaring was 
narrow-minded in some matters, she concluded that she 
was narrow-minded in all. She did not admit this to 
herself in so many words, it is true ; but she got into 
a habit of expecting her aunt’s views to be inadequate 
and unimaginative, till almost every word the poor lady 
said raised an inclination to opposition within her. 

Toward her uncle Elizabeth’s feeling was quite dif- 
ferent. Cupid still had his eyes bandaged, and had not 
exchanged love for criticism. To begin with, there was 
the tie of . common blood between the uncle and niece ; 
the sympathy which comes of hereditary instincts, and 
which often unites persons whose characters may, on 
the surface, seem to be very different. For Mr. Main- 
waring’s wishes and desires Elizabeth had an instinctive 
regard. She was almost contented to be dull at Clay- 
brooke, if by remaining there she made him happier and 
gave him pleasure. 

It was not only his true fatherly affection for her 
which made Mr. Mainwaring so dear to Elizabeth ; she 
was a person singularly influenced by her early emotions 
and impressions. To most people, I suppose, the Rec- 


68 


imS. LOEIMER. 


tor would not have appeared a very romantic figure : 
but to Elizabeth’s childish imagination, on one of his 
great raking hunters, clothed with the dignity of hunt- 
ing-boots and spurs, he had seemed to embody all the 
gallant spirit of chivalry. The little girl fancied that 
the heroes of Sir Walter Scott’s delightful stories must 
have ridden just such horses, and had the same air of 
perfect physical strength and pleasant courtesy about 
them. Elizabeth, as a child, had never been fired with 
the idea of military glory ; had never seen glittering 
uniforms, or been moved with a sense of passionate ex- 
hilaration at the sound of martial music ; had never 
been overcome with the wonderful pathos of all that 
brave show with its implied possibilities of horror, and 
agony, and death. So it happened that fox-hunting 
country gentlemen, commonplace easy-going people 
engaged merely in the pursuit of their own pleasure, 
represented to her the fine disregard of danger and in- 
difference to bodily discomfort and hurt, that is so 
entirely captivating to most women’s minds. It is the 
fashion, nowadays, to deprecate the poetry of broken 
bones as uncultivated and archaic ; but, “higher educa- 
tion,” board-schools, and certificates notwithstanding, 
most people are still ruled more by their instincts and 
feelings than by pure reason, or a delicate perception of 
artistic cause and effect. A man’s voluntary disregard 
of danger still claims a woman’s sincere admiration. 
The members of the softer sex have a latent element of 
savagery in them which makes many of them disposed, 
even in the nineteenth century, to rate brute courage 
above the cardinal virtues. 

Thus Elizabeth was strongly influenced, in two very 
different ways, by her feeling for Mr. Mainwaring. 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD WHITE. 59 

Notwithstanding her admiration for the broader and 
more cultivated life which she knew her brother-in-law 
and all his friends lived, from early habit and associ- 
ation, Elizabeth was conscious of possessing a* strange 
tenderness for men of her uncle’s type ; and she was 
never quite certain to which of these two very different 
orders of beings she really belonged. 

Anyway, she did not criticise Mr. Mainwaring much ; 
she asked herself no questions about him : but loved 
him simply, and as a natural result desired to please 
him. 


CHAPTER V. 


“ Whilst yet the calm hours creep, 

Dream thou — and from thy sleep 
Then wake to weep.” 

In the beginning of J uly the Rector left borne for 
a week. He went to receive rents from and listen to 
the complaints of his tenants on a small property which 
he owned in another county. This expedition was of 
yearly occurrence, and was regarded as a grave event 
in the household. Mr. Mainwaring staid at the house 
of his bailiff ; taking Bunton with him, and thereby 
securing not only his own comfort, but many interest-, 
ing subjects of conversation for the subsequent delecta- 
tion of the servants’ hall at Claybrooke — as the worthy 
butler returned home with a budget of gossip and 
stories not unworthy of Scheherezade herself ! 

Mrs. Mainwaring, to whom the notion of a railway- 
journey was always a little alarming, and whose devo- 
tion to her husband made her — after nearly forty years 
of married life — quite as unwilling to part from him for 
a week as she had been within six months of her -wed- 
ding-day, announced, as usual, her intention of driving 
over with the Rector to Slowby, and seeing him safely 
off by the three-o’clock up train. 

There was a great sense of movement in the usually 
quiet, well-regulated household. ‘‘ The fine old English 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 


61 


gentleman ” is always remarkably full of business and 
importance on the day of even a short journey. He 
gives orders in a loud voice in the hall and passages ; 
walks about with steps that resound through the house ; 
is undecided about the number of pairs of boots he will 
require to take with him, and has a general air of severe 
preoccupation, as though urgent affairs of state weighed 
heavy on his spirit. Bunton, like all good servants, 
thought it right to adopt a touch of his master’s man- 
ner and attitude of mind. He was as dignified and 
seriously solicitous over the packing of a couple of 
portmanteaus, as though he was on the eve of starting 
with Mr. Mainwaring on an exploring expedition into 
the heart of Africa. He intimated to the maids, several 
times, during the course 'of the morning, that, though 
no doubt they might be said to have some place — a 
small one — in the general economy of things, yet they 
were but trivial creatures at best, and wholly unequal 
. to great and solemn undertakings, such as that which 
he now had before him. 

I fancy there is no class of men who take them- 
selves, and their occupations and engagements, so en- 
tirely for granted as the old-fashioned English country 
gentleman, and the said gentleman’s old-fashioned faith- 
ful man-ci»rvant. They do everything with a serious- 
ness and ' an amount of conviction which is at once 
cbmic and impressive to the Bohemian ‘‘dweller in 
tents,” whose tendency is to smile at everything — him- 
self, most of all. But though, to an emancipated mind, 
it may seem a little absurd that any class of persons 
should be possessed of such an earnest and sincere belief 
in themselves, it must be admitted that they have an 
amount of solid individual character which is too often 


62 


MRS. LOEIMER. 


wanting in more brilliant men. They are at one with 
Nature, in fact — ^though they have little enough imagi- 
native appreciation of her beauties ; and from that at- 
one-ness springs a strength and self-confidence which is 
rightly very powerful. 

Elizabeth, when the travelers, with portmanteaus, 
sticks, whips, umbrellas, and all their various impedi- 
menta — Mrs. Mainwaring included — had at last started 
for the station, went up to her own room. 

It was a large low chamber in an angle of the house, 
v/ith two long mullioned windows. One of these looked 
out to the west, across the broad pasture-lands, to the 
faint blue line of the distant horizon. The other looked 
south, over a foreground of brilliant flower-beds, to* a 
thick bank of shrubbery and larch-trees, the tallest of 
which were delicately outlined against the sky. In this 
southern window — through which the sun now poured, 
filling the low room with mellow radiance — stood a writ- 
ing-table. Elizabeth pushed it a little aside to get the 
Vv^indow clear ; and after laying ofl her hot black dress, 
and putting on a white-linen wrapper, she sat herself 
down comfortably in a big chintz-covered chair and pre- 
pared to give herself over to luxurious rest of body, at 
least, if not also of mind. 

The old house was quiet, with the sleeps’ summer 
quiet which is so utterly restful and soothrug. Now 
and then there was a footstep on the gravfil in the gar- 
den below, or the comfortable rumble and squeak of a 
wheelbarrow, or the hushing sound of a broom — nice, 
careful noises, implying tidiness, and gentle labor, and 
a decent regard for appearances. The breeze came in 
laden with the scent of honeysuckle and jasmine through 
the wide-open easements ; and a bunch of tea-roses, set 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. G3 

in an old blue-and-white china jar on the table, added 
its delicate sweetness to the atmosphere of the room. 

Elizabeth sank back into the deep arm-chair with a 
little- sigh. The sunshiny stillness was very pleasant ; 
all her surroundings were thoroughly comfortable, and 
eminently respectable ; but, at one-and-twenty, stillness 
however sunshiny, comfort however solid, and respect- 
ability however obvious and undeniable, are hardly 
enough to yield entire content and satisfaction. At 
fifty or sixty, Elizabeth thought they might be sufficient. 
Then life would be pretty well over, and the shadows 
would be growing long, and a calm evening would be 
soothing after the busy day ; but at her age it seemed 
sad to have nothing better to do than count the quiet 
hours growing into quiet days and weeks, while the 
Rector took his little journeys, and Mrs. Mainwaring 
mildly ruled her docile household, and paid dignified af- 
ternoon calls. At one-and-twenty, few handsome young 
women, with plenty of health and strength, busy brains, 
and unfulfilled desires, would care to settle down in a 
land ‘‘ in which it seemed always afternoon.” 

Perhaps, on this particular day Elizabeth was all the 
more ready to resent her position and quarrel with her 
peaceful lot, because she had received some letters by 
the morning post which had opened an unexpected pros- 
pect before her. 

She had only had time to glance at them when they 
arrived, as Mr. Mainwaring’s impending exodus had 
demanded her — as well as every one else’s — complete 
attention ; but now, in her own room, she hoped to give 
them her serious consideration, and arrive at some defi- 
nite conclusion regarding their contents before Mrs. 
Mainwaring — who was sure to do a little composed shop- 


64 


MES. LOEIMER. 


ping in SlowTby — should get home, about half -past five 
o’clock, to tea. 

The first letter was from Robert Lorimer’s old law- 
yer, and dealt merely with a matter of business. In ad- 
dition to an income of about a thousand a year, her hus- 
band had left to Elizabeth a house, in the rather uninter- 
esting district of southwest London which stretches from 
around Victoria Station down toward the river. Robert 
Lorimer had taken this house on a long lease shortly 
before his marriage. The Frank Lorimers and various 
friends lived near by ; and the young couple had settled 
down in their London home, with the expectation of 
spending many years in it. But in point of fact they spent 
barely one year there. Robert Lorimer’s health broke 
down, as has already been stated ; he and his wife were 
hurried abroad at very short notice, and the house was 
let. Now, the lawyer wrote to inform Elizabeth that the 
family, which had taken the house, wished to give it up 
when their year expired in the coming September ; and 
to ask whether she desired that he should put it into 
the hands of some house-agent with a view to securing 
another tenant, or whether she proposed occupying it 
herself. 

The information and suggestion contained in this 
letter came upon Elizabeth with the force of a consid- 
erable surprise. She had been too confused and unhap- 
py when she left London to trouble herself about busi- 
ness ; and the matter of the letting of the house had 
entirely passed from her mind. 

Her first feeling on reading this letter was one of 
shrinking. How could she go back and live alone in a 
place so full of memories and disappointments? She 
did not disguise from herself that her marriage had, in 


65 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 

some ways, not been an entire success. It would be 
painful to be clearly reminded of all that it had not 
been, as well as of all that it had been. Both the sweet 
and bitter of memory would go to swell the stream of 
her regret. 

But, on the other hand, the prospect of a long, dreary 
winter in the cold, damp midlands, when the roads 
would be too bad to admit of the interchange of the 
mildest of social civilities, and when the fields would be 
too muddy to walk over, was far from exhilarating. 
Mr. Mainwaring’s chief employment, and, alas ! his chief 
subject of conversation, would be hunting. For days 
and weeks Elizabeth would have no one to speak to but 
her aunt ; and she was beginning to feel a little nervous 
at the idea of frequent Ute-d-Utes with Mrs. Mainwar- 
iiig. Even in the summer sunshine the old Rectory- 
house, with its inmates and surroundings, was a trifle 
wearisome to her ; what would it be, she wondered, in 
cheerless December or January weather ? She longed 
to live vividly. It was better even to suffer than to 
stagnate. Would the London house, haunted though it 
was by memories of her husband and her short married 
life — would it not, she thought, after all be preferable 
to the sameness and everlasting “afternoon” of her 
Claybrooke existence ? 

Elizabeth, lying back in the chintz-covered chair in 
her soft, white wrapper, with the sweet scents wander- 
ing in through the open window, wondered and pon- 
dered and balanced these two views of the question, 
and found it almost impossible to arrive at any decis- 
ion. 

If her uncle had not been engaged with the unusual 
turmoil of preparation for a journey that morning, she 


66 


MRS. LORIMER. 


would liave consulted liim, and probably some chance 
word or look of his would have touched the latent 
springs of tenderness and homely duty within her, and 
she would have staid quietly at Claybrooke — in which 
case her subsequent history would probably have been 
of a very simple and uneventful kind. But early in the 
day she had perceived that it was not a good opportu- 
nity for asking Mr. Main waring to apply a calm and judi- 
cial mind to the Contemplation of her alfairs ; and so she 
found herself compelled to arrive at an unaided decision. 

The more she thought the matter over, the more 
v*^as Elizabeth disposed to entertain the idea of going 
up to London for the winter. She would give herself a 
little time, anyway. She would not write at once and 
say that she wished the house to be let. She would 
pause — perhaps to-morrow she should see more clearly 
what to do. Only she was sensible of an ever-growing 
desire to be free, to be her own mistress again. I am 
afraid it can not be denied that my poor Elizabeth was 
egotistical, and looked at most things from the point of 
view of her own wishes ; but strong natures are inevi- 
tably a good deal occupied with themselves and their 
own sensations. Let those who are wiser reckon them 
as fools, if they will ; and then proceed to suffer them 
gladly, being sure that they are pretty certain to find 
their own level in time. 

The other letter was of a very different nature, and 
Elizabeth picked it up with a sense of relief after her 
mental struggle with the intricate question of the Lon- 
don house. 

It was written in Mrs. Frank Lorimer’s very neat 
little hand, adorned with many notes of admiration and 
much underlining, intended to point out and emphasize 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 


67 


the writer’s exact meaning in each sentence. But not- 
withstanding the exuberance of feeling that might be 
suggested by this style of calligraphy, and by the fre- 
quent use of superlatives, there was a force and clear- 
ness in the handwriting which implied that Mrs. Frank 
Lorimer, though of a lively disposition, was by no 
means in doubt as to her own intentions ; that she 
knew her own mind and would have no hesitation in 
speaking it, when it might suit her purpose to do so. 

“ Dearest and sweetest Elizabeth,” the letter began, 
I have been in a state of absolute distraction at not 
being able to write to you for so long ; but all my time 
has been taken up with the babies. Imagine, they 
caught the measles from some horrid children their 
nurse let them play v/ith in the square, unknown to me ! 
Of course I was furious. Other people’s children have 
no right to give my childi-en measles. However, fortu- 
nately, they were not at all seriously ill ; only, poor 
darlings, more cross than I can say. They have been a 
pair of perfect little bears for the last month, and nurse 
and I have been at our wits’ ends with them. How 
they are getting all right again ; but, as they still look 
wretchedly white and pulled, I have decided to take 
them out of town at once. It is rather a nuisance in 
some ways, as I didn’t mean to go away till the begin- 
ning of August, but that can’t be helped. I have set- 
tled to go off next week to a nice, dull, healthy, little 
place on the coast of Hormandy, where we spent two 
months last summer. It is ten miles from a railway, 
and quite charming — ^when you get there ! Frank will 
take us over, and then come back to his newspaper, and 
join us again later on. 


68 


MRS. LORIMER. 


‘‘And now, my dearest Elizabeth, at last I come to 
Hecuba. The babies and their odious little tempers — 
pretty dears — and their measles are only a prelude. 
Won’t you come too ? — Imagine how enchanted I should 
be to have you ! And it would do you no end of good. 

I am sure, saving your presence, that you must be get- 
ting uncommonly bored at Claybrooke. Frank told me 
it was a lovely old house : but that the country was in- 
finitely dismal, ^nd that Mr. and Mrs. Mainwaring — 
please don’t be angry — were immensely impressive and 
stately — he trembled before them — but that respectabil- 
ity reigned to a truly alarming extent. My dear, I feel^ 
a little stifled when I think of you guarded by these 
proprietous and unimaginative dragons. For goodness’ 
sake, Elizabeth, escape for a little while, and come and 
build sand castles with the babies and me in Herman dy ! 
We should have a lovely time. 

“ I can’t promise you that we shall be quite alone. 
If Frank was to set up business at the Horth Pole, or 
in the moon, some of his adoring friends would turn up 
even there, I believe. But the friend in chief just now 
— a certain Mr. Fred Wharton — is the only one of the 
society who is booked to stay long. And he really is 
charming — plays delightfully, is by way of making 
enormous sums by his pictures, and will talk any amount 
of mild philosophy. He and I quarrel incessantly ; but 
that gives a delicate point to existence, you know, and 
is rather agreeable than otherwise. Of course, you will 
have a difliculty in escaping from the dragons — from 
what Frank told me, I feel sure they think us most dan- 
gerous and undesirable. But, my dear, never mind 
them, just take your courage in both hands and come. 

I shall be perfectly delighted to have you, and so will 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD WHITE. 69 

Frank — he is your most truly devoted admirer. We 
start on Thursday week. KTow, Elizabeth, come, I en- 
treat you. The babies send kisses. — Always your most 
affectionate, Fanny Loeimek.” 

Elizabeth could not help smiling at her sister-in- 
law’s remarkable volubility as she laid down the letter ; 
and yet she was sensible of feeling a little annoyed. It 
is one thing to think slightly uncivil things of one’s own 
relations, and quite another thing to have somebody else 
say them. Elizabeth had remarked, several times be- 
fore this, that Mrs. Frank Lorimer’s vivacity occasionally 
betrayed her into indiscretions. Elizabeth did not quite 
approve of the way in which she spoke of the Main- 
warings, for it is never entirely agreeable to have an 
outsider put our secret thoughts into words, thereby 
generally showing us that the said thoughts are by no 
means wholly graceful and unselfish. Elizabeth was 
aware of a sudden movement of tenderness toward 
Claybrooke and her relations there, in consequence of 
Fanny Lorimer’s strictures upon them. 

It would undoubtedly be very pleasant to go off to 
the breezy French coast, and play with the two pretty, 
curly-headed, little children on the sea-shore, and listen 
to Mrs. Frank’s amusing chatter, and talk mild philoso- 
phy to Frank and his society of friends : but the idea 
of going up to London for the winter commended itself 
more and more to her mind. And the thought of giv- 
ing up this trip with the Lorimers for the sake of re- 
maining with her aunt and uncle was a little salve to 
Elizabeth’s conscience — which, she foresaw, might give 
her some trouble regarding her leaving Claybrooke for 
the winter. 


70 


MRS. LORIMER. 


The afternoon grew more and more hot and sultry, 
and Elizabeth’s meditations, as she lay stretched out in 
the deep chair, with her feet resting on the oak window- 
seat, grew more and more vague and misty. At last 
her eyes closed, and she lost consciousness of her sur- 
roundings. She and Mrs. Mainwaring seemed to be 
building sand castles on the sea-shore : but the incom- 
ing tide always washed Elizabeth’s castles away first. 
She built up One after another with desperate haste. 
It seemed that the whole happiness of her future de- 
pended on her castles outlasting Mrs. Mainwaring’s : 
but the frothy salt-water undermined one after another, 
and they sank away into the plain level of the wet sand. 
Elizabeth shifted her position uneasily once or twice, 
and then, settling into a more comfortable posture, slept 
on quietly, while the little gusts of wind tangled her 
brown hair into pretty confusion over her low forehead, 
and a soft blush came up into her cheeks, as into those 
of a sleeping child. 

One of the many unamiable peculiarities of the 
climate of Midlandshire — stoutly denied, however, by 
the natives, who, one and all, maintain that if our 
climate is not precisely Italian, it is still thoroughly 
good and eminently bracing and healthy — is, that you 
rarely get a really clear sky for more than a few hours 
together. 

During the morning, and even till the time that Mr. 
Mainwaring started for Slowby, the day had been radi- 
antly bright : but as the afternoon wore on, a thin layer 
of white cloud wove itself, as usual, over the face of the 
sky, and the sun shone through it with a pale diffused 
light. At last, the breeze dropped, while the atmosphere 
became more and more oppressive ; and heavy masses 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 


71 

of reddisli-white cloud began to rise out of the south- 
east, obscuring the dim sunlight and threatening a 
storm. 

Elizabeth slept on quietly for some time, and was 
awakened at last by a long growl of still distant thun- 
der. She got up hastily, and, looking out of the win- 
dow over the hot, misty country, observed the unmis- 
takable signs of an on-coming storm. The sky was 
becoming covered with rapidly-moving lurid clouds ; 
quick irritable little winds ruffled the heavy foliage of 
the trees for a moment and then died suddenly away. 

Elizabeth had that uneasy suspicion of approaching 
trouble and disaster which often oppresses persons of 
a sensitive organization before the breaking of a bad 
storm. She remembered that Mrs. Mainwaring must 
just be driving along the exposed high-road from Slow- 
by, and wished nervously that she was already home. 

Partly to overcome her instinctive feeling of loneli- 
ness, and partly to insure hearing the carriage directly 
it should stop at the front door, she set the door of her 
own room wide open on to the broad landing, at the 
farther end of which the main staircase of the house 
led down into the hall. Then, coming back to her chair 
near the window, she sat down to watch the storm and 
listen for the arrival of the carriage. 

Mrs. Mainwaring, Elizabeth knew, had an intense 
dislike of thunder, amounting almost to terror. She 
regarded a thunder-storm much as she might have re- 
garded a revolution. It seemed to her a horrible sub- 
version of the recognized order of things. It surprised 
and confused her. She liked well-regulated nature, use- 
ful fields and trim hedgerows, lazily-flowing streams, 
well-kept roads, and nicely laid-out gardens. Nature 


72 


MRS. LORIMER. 


should be dominated by man and be educated by Mm, 
Mrs. Mainwaring thought. Mountains and forests 
seemed to her somewhat too disorganized to be con- 
templated with anything but a disturbed sense of aston- 
ishment. In the same way she appreciated moderate 
sunshine and convenient rains, with an orthodox allow- 
ance of frost and snow during the winter ; but storms, 
and tempests, and droughts, alarmed and distressed her. 
They made everything seem so dreadfully insecure and 
doubtful. Poor Mrs. Mainwaring clung, with an almost 
painful tenacity, to that which is usual, and orderly, 
and well known. Everything violent and unexpected, 
whether in outward nature or in human emotion, was 
entirely bewildering and incomprehensible to her. 

it was past five o’clock when Elizabeth at last heard 
the sound of carriage-wheels and the opening of the 
front door. She hurried out on to the landing, while 
the thunder rolled and crackled overhead. Martha, the 
housemaid — who reigned below-stairs in the temporary 
absence of Bunton — was just saying, in answer to a 
faint inquiry of Mrs. Mainwaring, that lull’s. Lorimer 
was up-stairs, she believed, in her own room. 


CHAPTER VI. 


“ Virtue, how frail it is I 
Friendship, how rare 1 
Love, how it sells poor bliss 
For proud despair ! 

But we, though soon they fall, 

Survive their joy, and all 
Which ours we call.” 

Elizabeth waited, a tall, glimmering, white figure, 
in the dusky gloom of the landing, while Mrs. Main- 
waring — her small face pale with agitation — hurried up- 
stairs, anxious to find repose and security after the tur- 
moil of her stormy drive home. Like most women of a 
strong and ardent nature, Elizabeth was quickly moved 
to loving compassion by the sight of weak and timid 
creatures in distress. Mrs. Mainwaring, in the serene 
comfort of her daily life, was irritating to her ; but 
Mrs. Mainwaring, tired, wan, and frightened, was a very 
touching and appealing spectacle. 

“ Ah ! dear Aunt Susan, I’m so glad you are home,” 
she said, taking her aunt’s hand and leading her gently 
into her own room, the door of which still stood open. 

Mrs. Mainwaring turned to her with a clinging de- 
sire for support and encouragement. A thunder-storm, 
and Gerald on a railway- journey, seemed to her a con- 
junction of alarming circumstances, which justified her 
in claiming all the tenderness and affection that she 
could possibly get hold of, 

4 


u 


MRS. LORIMER. 


‘‘ Sit down,” said Elizabeth, pushing the big arm- 
chair round into a shady angle of the room. ‘‘You 
won’t see the lightning so much there ; and let me take 
off your things ; and let us have tea cozily up here, and 
then you’ll feel all right again. I believe the worst of 
the storm is over now.” 

While she spoke, she busied herself in taking off 
Mrs. Mainwaring’s bonnet and overjacket, and in ar- 
ranging the cap with white lappets, which she hastily 
fetched from her aunt’s room. I imagine that when a 
middle-aged woman has once accepted the inevitable, 
and taken to caps, there is nothing more confusing and 
disturbing to her than being without one, even for a 
very few minutes. 

Mrs. Mainwaring had often lamented privately that 
her niece’s hands were not smaller. They were white 
and well-shaped, she admitted ; but they had always 
appeared to her a little too large and strong for per- 
fect womanly refinement. On this occasion, however, 
as Elizabeth adjusted the afore-mentioned cap, and 
smoothed down her gray hair with gentle, reassuring 
touches, they seemed very lovely hands to Mrs. Main- 
waring. She put out her arms with a sudden impulsive 
movement, and, drawing the beautiful, pitiful face of 
the young woman down toward her, kissed it with quite 
unwonted ardor. 

“You are a dear, dear child, Elizabeth,” she said, 
tenderly ; “ and it is very sweet to have you so kind to 
me.” 

Her voice was a little tremulous, and her eyes were 
full of tears. Mrs. Mainwaring had lost for a moment 
that proprietous self-command and calm dignity of de- 
meanor, which — though very laudable in themselves — 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND' WHITE. 


75 


were certainly liable to keep most people at a very re- 
spectful distance from her. The two womem had not 
felt so thoroughly at one for a long while. They had 
got away from all that is passing and superficial, into a 
region of simple and kindly sympathy. There was a 
delicate harmony between them, which both felt to be 
eminently refreshing after the discords and differences 
of the last few months. 

“ Poor Aunt Susan,” said Elizabeth, smiling, as she 
looked down at the dainty, pretty old lady. “You 
have been so frightened and agitated. I have been 
listening for the carriage for ever so long. Then you 
were driving that young chestnut horse that Uncle Ger- 
ald wanted to try — I was in a great fuss about it, be- 
cause I thought very likely it would be troublesome.” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Mainwaring, “I was very nervous. 
William drives very well : but I never feel really safe 
without your uncle. I can’t bear being alone. I had 
begged that we might try the chestnut some other day, 
but your uncle was in a hurry — ^he had given the orders, 
and I didn’t like to worry him just when hfe was going 
away.” 

“Then the last bit of the Slowby road is so ex- 
posed,” added Elizabeth. 

“ Oh, yes ! it was horrible. I don’t approve, you 
know, of strong expressions, but it really was horrible. 
I am so thankful to be at home safe,” continued Mrs. 
Mainwaring, with a little sigh of relief, while she softly 
patted Elizabeth’s hand, which she still held. 

The arrival of Martha with the tea created a diver- 
sion ; and Elizabeth, having no more convenient place 
to set the tray on, cleared a space at one end of the 
writing-table, bundling her various books and papers 


76 


MRS. LORIMER. 


into a Reap at the other end, to make room for it. This 
arrangement was not altogether a tidy one, and conse- 
quently not altogether to Mrs. Mainwaring’s taste. She 
could not help observing it with discomfort — all dis- 
order was painful to her — but she forbore to make any 
open comment. 

On the top of the other papers, consj^icuous both 
from its shape and color, lay the lawyer’s letter that 
Elizabeth had lately been reading. It lay open rather 
courting notice ; and Mrs. Mainwaring’s attention, as 
she sat waiting passively for her cup of tea, was easily 
won. She could not help noticing that it was a busi- 
ness letter, and she began wondering vaguely what it 
contained. At another time, she would have disdained 
to appear to take any unasked-for interest in a private 
matter of her niece’s ; it would have been almost im- 
possible to her to put questions about it : but her recent 
fright, and present sense of returning comfort and se- 
curity, had somewhat relaxed her moral fiber, so to 
speak. She felt idly fascinated by the open letter ; her 
eyes wandered toward it repeatedly, as Elizabeth poured 
out and handed her her tea — chatting all the while 
about the storm, which still rolled overhead, about Mr. 
Mainwaring’s journey, about the road from Slowby, and 
the young chestnut horse. Mrs. Mainwaring was aware 
of a growing desire to know what business the letter 
could refer to ; and became more and more disposed, as 
she drank a second excellent and reassuring cup of tea, 
and began to feel quite secure of herself and at her ease 
again, to ask some direct question concerning it. Poor 
lady, her recent adventures and emotions had shaken 
her out of the safe little rut along which she generally 
traveled ; and now that she was recovering her footing. 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 77 

her state of mind was one in which she was liable to 
make unfortunate excursions in various directions ! 

As Mrs. Main waring finished her second cup of tea, 
the temptation became altogether too strong to be any 
longer resisted. Elizabeth’s thoughts had wandered 
away to the Frank Lorimers’ proposal. She was just 
remembering how she had fallen asleep after reading 
her sister-in-law’s letter, and recalling her uncomforta- 
ble dream about Mrs. Mainwaring and the sand castles, 
when that lady suddenly spoke. Elizabeth was roused 
immediately from her reverie ; there seemed to be some 
subtle connection between her own thoughts and her 
aunt’s unexpected questions. 

“ Is that a letter from your lawyer, Elizabeth ? ” 
asked Mrs. Mainwaring. 

She felt rather glad that she was sitting in the dark, 
for she was aware that she flushed a little, and she 
wished to appear perfectly easy and composed. 

“ Yes,” answered Elizabeth. 

She was sorry, somehow, that her aunt had asked 
her ; and, but for the softening influences of their late 
meeting, and of Mrs. Mainwaring’s loving kiss, which 
still lingered pleasantly with her, she would probably 
have contented herself with that laconic reply. Just 
now, however, she felt but slight temptation to be un- 
gracious toward her aunt, even though she did ask un- 
called-for questions — it is wonderfully soothing and 
agreeable to be at peace with other people. So, after 
a moment’s pause, Elizabeth continued : 

“ It is from Mr. Pimbury, about the house we had 
in London. It seems that the present tenant gives it 
up in September.” 

“ Indeed,” said Mrs. Mainwaring— tea and darkness 


78 


MRS. LORIMER. 


made her brave ; she began to think she had quite a 
right to know a little more of this matter. Did you 
expect that it would be given up so soon ? ” 

“ No,” said Elizabeth, turning her face away, and 
looking sadly out of the window at the dull, stormy 
sky. “ I didn’t remember on what terms the house was 
let. I was thinking of very different things just at the 
time the arrangement was made, you know. Aunt Su- 
san.” 

“ Yes, yes,” said Mrs. Main waring, hastily : but she 
had no disposition to let the conversation drop. 

Elizabeth felt a little worried ; she had not any de- 
sire to enter fully into this question, and to hint at her 
own half -formed plans. At the same time she wanted 
to be amiable ; and she had a consciousness, too, that 
Mrs. Mainwaring was sitting still there, merely waiting 
for further communications. It is never pleasant to 
have information silently extracted from one. 

“The letter only came to-day,” said Elizabeth at 
last, turning toward her aunt, “ I should have spoken 
to Uncle Gerald about it : but he was so busy this 
morning that I didn’t like to bother him with it.” 

•r “ Yes ? ” answered Mrs. Mainwaring ; but with more 
of inquiry than of mere assent in her tone. 

The good lady was quite alert now. All the limp- 
ness of half an hour ago had gone out of her. She 
was refreshed by tea and by sitting still in a safe place ; 
the thunder, too, was slowly dying away in the far dis- 
tance, which was decidedly encouraging to her spirits. 
She was beginning to feel a little irritated at Eliza- 
beth’s want of communicativeness : but her moral fiber 
was no longer relaxed, and, though she wanted more 
than ever to know all about the matter, she had re- 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE, 79 

gained sufficient self-control to be determined to ask no 
more direct questions. 

There was rather a long pause. Elizabeth was sta- 
tioned between the two windows, so that the light was 
concentrated about her white figure. She sat resting 
one elbow on the corner of the writing-table, and was 
apparently deeply engaged in the not very intellectual 
employment of balancing her teaspoon on the edge of 
her cup. It was the sort of thing Mrs. Mainwaring 
could not manage to be unconscious of. She hated to 
see things put to wrong uses. Somehow the delicate 
sympathy which had subsisted, a little while before, 
between the two women, seemed to be growing fainter 
and fainter, and to be losing itself in the light of com- 
mon day. Each of them, from different causes, felt a 
trifle annoyed with the other. At last Elizabeth’s 
spoon slipped with a little flop and splash into her cup. 
It seemed, somehow, to bring her to a sudden decision, 
for she looked up and spoke again. 

“ Mr. Pimbury wants to know whether I wish to have 
the house let again at once, or keep it in my own hands.” 

‘‘ There can not be any doubt as to your answer, my 
dear,” Mrs. Mainwaring remarked quietly, but a little 
incisively. 

« Why ? I don’t quite understand you,” answered 
Elizabeth, who, being conscious of her own growing de- 
sires in the matter, wished that her aunt did not think 
the question so perfectly obvious and simple. 

“ Of course you must let the house.” 

“ I don’t quite see why it should be of course,” said 
Elizabeth, emphasizing the last two words, and begin- 
ning to feel rather obstinate. ‘‘ It really seems to me a 
matter that requires some little consideration.” 


80 


MES. LOEIMEK. 


“ My dear, how can it be ? ” replied Mrs. Mainwar- 

ing. 

She sat up quite straight in her chair. The pink 
flush in her cheeks deepened. She looked at Elizabeth 
with an air of surprise, not to say consternation. It was 
very tiresome, Mrs. Mainwaring felt, that, just at the 
moment when everything seemed to be going so pleas- 
antly and smoothly, this apple of discord should drop 
down between them ; but the proprieties were reassert- 
ing their usual sway over her, and she felt bound to 
speak clearly and decidedly, however disagreeable it 
might be to do so. 

“It would be quite impossible for you to live in 
London alone, <you know ; and there can be no object 
in the house standing empty,” she said. 

“ I don’t see that it would be at all impossible for 
me to spend, the winter in London,” answered Elizabeth. 
“I could let the house again for the season and come 
back here.” 

Mrs. Mainwaring leaned a little forward in her 
dusky corner, ’and pressed the palms of her hands to- 
'gether rather nervously as they lay in her lap. 

“ But, my dear Elizabeth, don’t you understand that 
a young woman of your age and position ought not to 
live by herself ? It would appear so very strange ; I 
don’t know what people would say. I don’t ask you to 
consider your uncle and me, or our feelings at your leav- 
ing us ; I merely ask you to think for a moment how 
very strange this plan of yours must appear to every 
one. You must see at once that it is impossible. It 
couldn’t be done,” said Mrs. Mainwaring, with consid- 
erable dignity and decision. 

“But why couldn’t it be done?” rejoined Elizabeth. 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD WHITE. 


81 


The fact that her aunt treated the idea as utterly pre- 
posterous raised a strong spirit of opposition in her. 

It is an unpleasing, but unfortunately a certain fact, 
that two people are never more likely to have a serious 
and bitter quarrel than just when they are recoveriug 
from an attack of unusually expansive affection. The 
excitement produces a reaction, which, too frequently, 
is very dangerous. 

“ Of course I only want to go for a time. Aunt 
Susan,” Elizabeth continued. ^‘You know how glad I 
am to be with you and Uncle Gerald : but I should be 
very glad to spend a few months in London. And, after 
all, why is it so absurd for me to think of living alone ? 
Lots of other women are obliged to do it.” 

“ But you are not obliged to do it, my dear,” said 
Mrs. Mainwaring. ‘‘ Here is Claybrooke ; here are your 
own relations ; here is the home you have always been 
accustomed to. There is no reason for you to seek 
another. You are not in the position of a woman who 
is obliged to live alone ; in your case — indeed — it would 
be obviously unbecoming.” 

You speak altogether too strongly. Aunt Susan,” 
said Elizabeth quickly, straightening herself up. “I 
am not in the habit of proposing to do things that are 
obviously unbecoming.” 

There was a pause. Mrs. Mainwaring was aware 
that she had made a false step. 

“ I wish, and I intend,” said Elizabeth, ‘Ho see some- 
thing of my — of Robert’s relations this year.” She 
waited a moment to steady her voice, which was a little 
shaky, and then went on distinctly : “ Fanny Lorimer 
tells me how much they want to see me. She asked me 
to go abroad with them this month. I don’t care to do 


82 


MRS. LORIMER. 


that just now ; bat I really must see something of them 
later on. They would be close to me in London, and I 
should like to see them quietly in my own home. I 
should prefer that to staying with them for any length 
of time.” 

Mr s. Main waring looked down at her clasped hands, 
and said, softly : 

“ It would surely be unnecessary for you to do that, 
in any case.” 

‘‘ But I don’t think so, you see,” rejoined Elizabeth, 
rather hotly. “ And in this matter I really must follow 
my own judgment. Aunt Susan.” 

I can’t agree with you, my dear,” said Mrs. Main- 
waring with quiet persistence. In a question like this, 
the opinion of those who are older and more experienced 
than you are — of those who stand to you, as your uncle 
and I do, in the place of parents — their opinion, I must 
think, should be not only considered, but abided by.” 

Uncle Gerald has not had an opportunity of giving 
his opinion yet,” said Elizabeth. 

“ Well, then, in his absence, Elizabeth, I hold it to 
be my duty to speak quite plainly to you.” Mrs. Main- 
waring paused ; she gathered up all her courage, and 
then said, “ Understand that I entirely disapprove of 
this proposal — entirely.” 

Elizabeth stood up, and rested her hands on the back 
of her chair. She was growing a little excited, and sit- 
ting still was irksome to her. She would have been 
glad to avoid a scene with her aunt ; but she felt 
strongly that, if she wanted to secure her independence, 
it was a case of ‘‘ now or never.” Also she believed 
that Mrs. Mainwaring’s social objection to the Frank 
Lorimers was at the bottom of her strong opposition to 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKH WHITE. 83 

this London scLeme. Elizabeth was almost fiercely de- 
termined to stand by her husband’s relations. Her very 
doubt as to her entire devotion to Robert Lorimer made 
her desperately anxious to pay all due honor to his people. 
And, at this moment, her desire for a larger and more 
vivid sphere of life than that which Claybrooke offered 
her ranged itself alongside her loyalty to the dead, and 
made her ready to fight out the battle with poor little 
Mrs. Mainwaring to the bitter end. 

“ I must speak plainly, too,” she said. “ The real 
truth is, that you can’t endure the Frank Lorimers — 
you don’t think them up to the mark — you want me to 
drop them altogether.” 

‘‘ Pray, pray,” cried Mrs. Mainwaring, wdth an agi- 
tated little wave of her hands, as though dismissing 
Robert Lorimer’s tiresome relations to the remotest 
quarter of the globe — “pray don’t let us begin discuss- 
ing that unfortunate subject.” 

“You want me to settle down,” Elizabeth went on, 
with increasing warmth, ignoring the Frank Lorimers’ 
dismissal, “ as if nothing had happened — as if there was 
no difference between what I am now and what I was 
as a girl. You want me just to miss out all the last 
few years, except in the way of wearing black gowns. 
Don’t you see, don’t you understand, that it is impos- 
sible for me not to want to see Robert’s relations — that 
I can’t give up the past altogether ? ” 

“You are quite wrong and mistaken,” answered Mrs. 
Mainwaring, quickly. “ I have no wish that you should 
not be different — that you should not realize your situ- 
ation. It is you, Elizabeth— I must say it — who seem 
to me to disregard your situation. Oh ! dear me,” 
cried the poor lady, in much agitation and distress, 


84 : 


MRS. LORIMER. 


“don’t you see that it is hardly decent— yes, really 
hardly decent for you to propose to settle in London, 
and go about and entertain people, when you have been 
only a few months a widow ? Don’t you see that it is 
absolutely wanting in proper respect for your husband’s 
memory?” 

Elizabeth’s face flamed scarlet. Now she did not 
care what she said. Every little unpleasant word that 
Mrs. Mainwaring had ever spoken, every worldly sug- 
gestion, every small act of repression, every want of 
comprehension of the position of others, every stupidity 
that her aunt had ever committed, rushed into Eliza- 
beth’s mind. Like most of us, she had an excellent 
memory for the faults of her near relations. All the 
bitter feelings she had nourished in secret against Mrs. 
Mainwaring filled her, and overflowed, pouring them- 
selves forth in a torrent of excited words. 

“ How dare you say such a thing. Aunt Susan ? ” 
she cried. “ How dare you accuse me of such a thing ? 
You to speak to me of want of proper respect, when 
you are trying to make me give up Robert’s own 
brother, and hold myself too fine to associate with him 
and his wife ! What would he have cared for the sort 
of respect which consists in sitting up-stairs with the 
blinds half down, and wearing loads of crape, and 
wondering whether this and that and the other person 
thinks you look unhappy enough ? A very precious 
sort of respect that, consisting in clothes merely, and 
little trivial forms ; a careful paying of the tithe of 
mint, and anise, and cummin, while the weightier mat- 
ters — the love, and the justice, and gratitude, gratitude 
to his own brother, to his own flesh and blood — are for- 
gotten and neglected ! You don’t understand me ! ” 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 85 

cried Elizabeth, “you never have understood me ! You 
want to run me into your own little social mold, and 
have me for ever thinking what a set of stupid, ignor 
rant, unimportant people are saying about me, instead 
of letting me be honest and faithful, as I want to 
be.” 

“ You are cruel, you are very cruel, Elizabeth,” said 
Mrs. Mainwaring, slowly. She pressed her hand to her 
side, as if in actual physical pain. 

“ It is you, you that are cruel,” answered Elizabeth, 
passionately — “ you who want to cramp and maim my 
poor life, and build it in on every side with miserable 
conventional usages. I want to live !, Think ! already, 
though I am so young, I have had troubles which you 
know nothing about^I have had to bear disappoint- 
ment, sorrow, and anguish. Haven’t I suffered enough 
already, but that I must be thwarted and hedged in at 
every turn with these wretched worldly considerations ? 
— that I must submit tamely to be bored almost to 
death ? — that I must settle down, finally, at one-and- 
twenty, in the dullest of country neighborhoods, with- 
out a hope or prospect in the future ? Don’t you see I 
long to gather up my life and begin again ; to do some- 
thing ; to be interested in living? I am young and 
strong ; I can’t make up my mind to stagnate here, 
wasting myself in useless regrets. You have your hus- 
band, Aunt Susan, and your home, and your life is full 
of what you like. But I — look,” she said, spreading 
out her hands with a despairing gesture — “I have ab- 
solutely nothing. Surely you can get on perfectly well 
without me ? Let me go, at all events, for a time ; let 
me see and know the world ; let me live a little, and 
not rust here. Ah ! life may be so full and beautiful 


86 


MRS. LORIMER. 


for me somewhere else. Let me go — you have no right 
to prevent me I ” 

Just' then the clouds parted, and the glare of a 
stormy sunset filled all the room. Elizabeth’s white 
dress, as she stood in the gaudy light, was stained with 
an angry orange glow. Shaken with her passion and 
with her own wild words, her brown hair disordered 
and her eyes flashing, she looked like the very spirit of 
the fierce and beautiful sunset, away there, down in the 
west. 

Mrs. Mainwaring had risen too. She stood in the 
dim and dusky corner of the room, wLere Elizabeth had 
set the arm-chair for her with so much tender solicitude 
hardly an hour ago. Truly, only those whom we love 
can really torture us in this world. In that short hour, 
half the joy of poor Mrs. Mainwaring’s heart had with- 
ered, and faded, and died. The child whom she had 
brought up, whom she had tried to persuade herself she 
loved as her very own, had turned upon her and shown 
her that there was a great gulf fixed between them — 
had plucked the very heart out of her poor, respectable, 
unimaginative life, and trampled it under strong, relent- 
less, young feet. Mrs. Mainwaring was filled with bit- 
terness. She and Elizabeth could never be the same to 
each other again. There was a rent in their mutual 
love, which could only be patched, and never, it seemed 
to her, be mended wholly. 

Mrs. Mainwaring felt very tired, she wanted to go 
away aiid be quiet somewhere ; but she could not go 
without a parting word. She steadied herself for a 
moment, with one hand, on the arm of her chair ; then 
she said, in a thin, hard voice : 

You are quite right, Elizabeth ; I do not under- 


A SKETCH IN’ BLACK AND WHITE. 87 

stand you. At this moment, I confess, I have no wish 
to understand you, for you seem to me to he in a singu- 
larly exaggerated and ill-regulated state of mind. W e 
think very differently. I may be rather old-fashioned ; 
but you are so painfully violent that it is quite useless 
for us to attempt to have any further conversation on 
this matter. While you remain at Claybrooke, I must 
ask you to treat me and my friends — whom you so 
greatly despise — with common courtesy and respect. 
And, for my part, you may rest assured,” she added, 
“ that I shall not interfere in any way with your plans 
and arrangements in future.” 

As she finished speaking, Mrs. Main waring moved 
out from her shadowy corner into the glare of the fierce 
sunlight. Elizabeth was shocked when she saw how 
pinched and aged she looked, as the light fell on her. 
Her heart smote her, and she came forward quickly. 

‘‘Ah ! you are tired, you are ill, Aunt Susan,” she 
said. “ I have — ” 

But Mrs. Mainwaring put her sternly aside. 

“ I will begin at once to learn to do without you, 
Elizabeth,” she answered, and went slowly out of the 
room. 

Elizabeth flung herself down on the floor, in the 
midst of the lurid sunshine, and, resting her head on 
the hard window-seat, sobbed bitterly. 

Pride and remorse struggled together within her. 
The picture of her past troubles, and of her present 
desolation, which she had called up by her own words, 
affected her profoundly. Everything seemed to have 
fallen short of her hopes and expectations ; everything 
had yielded her less joy and satisfaction than she asked 
of it. Poor child ! she had always desired so passion- 


88 


MRS. LORIMER. 


ately to be happy ; she had tried so hard to bo happy. 
Her aunt had told her to be ladylike ; her husband had 
told her to be good ; her own heart told her always to 
be happy. And it told her so still. Still she longed 
and hungered and struggled ; and still the phantom of 
happiness eluded and escaped her. She said, Give me 
this one thing more, and I shall be happy.” She got 
the one coveted thing, and found that the old longing 
and unrest clung to her yet. Sometimes it made her 
hard, selfish, and inconsiderate, as she knew she had 
been to-day. She bated herself, and yet craved, all the 
same, for the thing which seemed as though it might 
possibly bring her happiness. Good and evil are most 
subtly mixed up in us ; the wheat and the tares flourish 
only too well close side by side. Elizabeth was gener- 
ous and selfish, cruel and tender-hearted, all at the same 
time. She needed many a lesson yet from the hard and 
steady teacher — Experience ; whose teaching, though 
slow, is so absolutely and awfully conclusive at last. 

The dinner-bell rang while she was still crying her 
heart out in the dying sunshine, with her sweet face 
pressed down on the window-seat. A minute or two 
later Martha knocked at the door. Elizabeth jumped 
up hastily, and stood with her back to the light, so as, 
if possible, to hide the signs of her late agitation from 
that worthy woman’s eyes. She felt that it would be 
impossible to go down-stairs and talk good little com- 
monplace talk to her aunt over her dinner for Martha- 
and-propriety’s sake ; so she sent word that she had a 
bad headache, and wanted to be quiet. And Mrs. Main- 
waring — who, from pure habit, would have sat down to 
dinner at seven o’clock if all the world had been com- 
ing to an end at half-past-eight — found herself obliged 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 


89 


to take her evening meal in melancholy silence and soli- 
tude. 

Poets and lovers, and other persons of an excitable 
habit of mind, have a pretty fiction that Nature laughs 
over their joys, and weeps with them in all their griefs : 
but, to a calm observer, this seems to be rather an opti- 
mist view of the matter. The two women, who, in that 
pleasant, quiet, old Rectory-house, should have stood to 
each other in the gentle and beautiful relation of mother 
and daughter, lay awake far into the summer night, each 
in her own chamber alone — Elizabeth, with passionate 
tears, asking why the husband who might have guided, 
trained, and saved her was taken from her side so soon ; 
and Mrs. Mainwaring, with the cruel, dry-eyed sorrow 
of age, asking bitterly, as she had asked many times 
these thirty years, why God had seen fit to deny her the 
sacred joys of motherhood, for which she had so ardently 
prayed and yearned. Yet the night was serene and 
cloudless. The stars shone peacefully out of the deep, 
purple, summer sky. The pastures spread fresh and 
sweet under the soft breeze. And in the morning the 
sun arose, rejoicing like a giant to run his course. The 
night was as solemnly glad and the morning as radiantly 
gay, as though no poor human hearts were torn with 
painful struggle and contending, and burdened with the 
deadly weight of love grown cold. 


CHAPTER YII. 

“ Nurse no extravagant hope.” 

The week during whicli the Rector was away was a 
very wretched one at Claybrooke. Mrs. Mainwaring 
wrapped herself in a garment of cold and rigid civility — 
fortunately for her there were no more thunder-storms 
— and Elizabeth, alternately wrathful and penitent, spent 
a good many hours in her own room writing letters to 
Mr. Pimbury and tearing them up again. 

She was compelled to answer Mrs. Frank Lorimer’s 
letter without delay, so she wrote a short and rather ir- 
ritable note, saying that Normandy was out of the ques- 
tion for her at present ; holding out vague hopes of a 
meeting in London in the autumn ; and bestowing so 
few words on the babies and their ailments, that her 
sister-in-law, who always had a lively inclination to 
read between the lines, immediately arrived at the con- 
clusion that the old Mainwarings ” — as she irreverent- 
ly called them in familiar conversation her with husband 
— “ must have been perfectly odious : and that Eliza- 
beth must have suffered such a martyrdom at their 
hands, that she had no sympathy left, poor dear, to ex- 
pend on anybody but herself.” 

People are strong, one sometimes fears, in propor- 
tion to their limitations. Mrs. Mainwaring, in virtue 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AKD WHITE. 


91 


of her limited imagination, had a remarkable power of 
maintaining a fixed attitude of mind and of manner, 
Elizabeth’s feelings, on the contrary, fiuctuated a good 
deal. More than once, a word from her aunt would 
even now have opened the flood-gates of repentance, 
and she would have humbled herself and asked pardon : 
but Mrs. Mainwaring remained hopelessly the same. 
Every look and every word implied, delicately but 
surely, that she was outraged, astonished, greatly 
pained, utterly shocked ; that she was well aware that 
she and Elizabeth were aunt and niece, and owed each 
other a certain consideration from that fact : but 
everything stopped there. — Mr. Mainwaring was com- 
ing home in a few days, he must speak the final word ; 
meanwhile, she would stand by her colors, support the 
position she had taken up, and maintain a dignified and 
suggestive silence. 

There is nothing more irritating than being in dis- 
grace. A very few days of this state of things were 
enough to exhaust all Elizabath’s latent tenderness and 
harden her in rebellion ; and two days before Mr. Main- 
, waring’s return she wrote definitely to the lawyer, to in- 
form him that she should take up her residence in Lon- 
don in September, and to request him, therefore, to take 
no further steps regarding the letting of her house. 

Conversation under these unfortunate conditions 
was difficult ; and the two ladies found time hang so 
heavily on their hands that they welcomed warmly any 
little incident which broke in upon the monotonous 
round of half -silent breakfasts, luncheons, teas, and 
dinners. Mr. Keeper, the Yicar of Lowcote, who has 
already been mentioned in these pages, was not an ob- 
ject of great admiration either to Mrs. Mainwaring or 


92 


MES. LOEIMER. 


to Elizabeth. It was rather surprising to observe in 
what a remarkably kindly spirit they both received him 
at this juncture, when he came one afternoon to pay a 
long-owed visit. 

Mr. Leeper had given himself a day’s holiday. Time 
was precious, he measured it out with a sparing hand — 
and having done one social duty by taking luncheon' 
with the Harbages at Highthorne, he thought it well, 
as the day must, it seemed, be given over to trivialities, 
to walk on the five miles from there and pay this visit 
at Claybrooke Rectory. Mr. Harbage had started to 
walk with him, but the roads were dusty and the day 
extremely warm. Mr. Harbage was a portly man, of a 
soft, lymphatic temperament — moreover, he had par- 
taken generously of a hot one-o’clock dinner, prepared 
with unusual delicacy and plenty in honor of the ex- 
pected guest. By the time he reached the outskirts of 
Highthorne Parish, Mr. Harbage was aware that his 
courage was oozing out at every pore. He began to 
think it might be dangerous .for a man, at his time of 
life, to take a long walk so soon after eating ; he had 
uncomfortable visions of sunstroke and apoplexy. Mrs. 
Harbage, who entertained hopes that her eldest daugh- 
ter’s undeniable abilities as an organist and district 
visitor might have made some impression on Mr. Beep- 
er’s mind, had suggested privately that this walk would 
be an excellent opportunity for finding out how far that 
gentleman’s heart was entangled by Louisa’s useful — if 
not romantic — qualifications for the position of a clergy- 
man’s wife. But Mr. Harbage was altogether too hot 
for delicate diplomacy. He longed for his own study, 
slippers, and an old and easy coat at this moment, far 
more than for any matrimonial advantages that might 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 


93 


accrue to his eldest daughter. Therefore, he suddenly 
rememhered that he had forgotten something very im- 
portant ; and bidding — with many protestations of re- 
gret — ^his younger and more vigorous companion a warm 
adieu, he turned homeward, walking erect and fast, to 
carry out the idea of urgent business, as long as there 
was any chance of Mr. Keeper turning hack and seeing 
him. Then, after wiping his face several times and 
leaning for a while against a shady five-barred gate, he 
trudged slowly homeward, to baffle his wife’s anxious 
inquiries, concerning his conversation with their late 
guest, with as much ingenuity and as few equivocations 
as he might. 

Mr. Keeper was a tall, thin, bilious-complexioned 
man, with a sparse black beard, and a rather high fore- 
head, which had a tendency to crumple itself up into 
irritable lines. He was almost distressingly energetic, 
and took real comfort in the thought of his mental and 
physical activity, and in the fact that he was a total 
abstainer. He believed that he possessed the original 
healthy mind in a healthy body. This belief gave him 
a certain inclination to sit upon his friends and ac- 
quaintances. He felt convinced that if every one would 
only take his advice and follow his example, a sort of 
millennium of peace and plenty would immediately set 
in. 

Mr. Keeper belonged to that section of English 
Churchmen which, not contented with trying to rule 
the Church, has a strong desire to rule the world as 
well. They dominate the life of their parishes in the 
most alarming way. Everything, from the Eastward 
Position to the state of the cottagers’ pig-styes, seems 
to come within their province. As a rule, they are not 


94 : 


MES. LOEIMEK. 


greatly beloved. Poor Mr. Leeper was really a very 
admirable, pure-minded, and devoted man : but be made 
himself the measure of the universe, and, unfortunately, 
that measure seemed not to be entirely correct some- 
where. He had cast up all social and religious prob- 
lems according to it, over and over again : but, though 
he felt sure he was right, the answer did not work out 
in universal peace and good-will, as it so obviously ought 
to have done. 

Mr. Leeper arrived, warm, energetic, and argu- 
mentative, at Claybrooke Rectory that afternoon, and 
was ushered into the cool shaded drawing-room, where 
Elizabeth Lorimer received him with unusual kindness 
of demeanor. Mr. Leeper rather prided himself on a 
stern indifference to his surroundings, but it was im- 
possible for him not to be distinctly aware of th^ con- 
trast between the bare dining-room at Highthome, 
steaming with early dinner, the ill-dressed, angular Miss 
Ilarbages, with their distressingly-anxious mother, and 
the pleasant repose of this stately old room, and quiet 
self - possession of the graceful young widow. Mr. 
Leeper tried to be practical, and tell himself that fun- 
damentally it was merely a difference of so many hun-' 
dreds, or perhaps thousands, a year, and ' .hctt the 
Harbages ought not to be blamed or Mrs. Lorimer 
admired for the difference : but, unfortunately, when 
one’s eyes are pleased it is a little difficult to keep fun- 
damental facts in view. Mr. Leeper could not help 
being rather gratified at his reception. He had no 
great respect for Mr. Mainwaring, but he began, chari- 
tably, to think it more than possible that this handsome 
serious-looking young lady might be considerably less 
darkened by prejudice, or 'willful ignorance of impor- 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 


95 


tant social and ecclesiastical questions, than her rela- 
tions. 

Elizabeth listened so graciously to his conversation 
that a sudden thought flashed into Mr. Leeper’s mind. 
He knew that it was a little unworthy of his stern, 
somewhat ascetic, ideal of life, but still there it was. 
How would it be to convert and then take possession of 
this fair daughter of the Philistines, and use all the 
Philistine power and gold against the Philistines them- 
selves ? To use it for the furthering of the temperance 
cause and of diocesan conferences, the spread of sound 
Church teaching and the just administration of the poor 
law? The parish of Lowcote was too small by any 
means to exhaust Mr. Leeper’s large stock of energy. 
This audacious idea, which had started all unbidden 
into his brain, seemed to him a very attractive outlet 
for much of his bottled-up force. As he sat talking to 
Elizabeth, enjoying the cool atmosphere and — though 
he would hardly have liked to admit it — the sight of 
her sweet face, this idea gave to his manner just that 
touch of softness and respect in which it was generally 
wanting. He waxed eloquent concerning free and open 
sittings, the miserable condition of the cottages of some 
of the is’boring poor at Lowcote, and the sorrow and 
degradation consequent on drink ; till Elizabeth, who 
had only hailed his coming as a relief from her sense of 
discomfort and enmiiy began to think him not only en- 
durable, but really rather interesting ; and Mrs. Main- 
waring, though she knew it was high treason to agree 
with him, became willing to concede that his “ motives 
might be good, though, poor young man, he was la- 
mentably wrong-headed on some points, and not at all 
the sort of person she had always been accustomed to.” 


96 


MES. LOKIMER. 


Life seemed full of possibilities to Mr. Leeper as be 
strode borne that evening in tbe gloaming. He left 
practical matters alone for a while, and indulged him- 
self with building a series of pleasing castles in tbe air. 
He saw himself on tbe high-road to a general making 
of the crooked straight, and of the rough places plain. 
He was more than ever confident in the certain arrival 
of a millennium, consequent on the unconditional ac- 
ceptance of his views by the world at large. 

But— alas ! for Mr. Beeper’s visions of future tri- 
umph — when he reached home, he found an angry letter 
from Mr. Adnitt, saying that his servants refused, in a 
body, to attend Lowcote Church, unless orders were 
distinctly given by the vicar that strangers were not to 
be put into their pew. While Mr. Doughty, the prin- 
cipal bass in the choir — who, as he said himself, ‘‘ had 
sung there, man and boy, this twenty years come next 
Easter ” — was waiting in the study to announce, with 
more directness than urbanity, that “as Mr. Leeper 
thought his-self such an uncommon good musician and 
^ took people down so sharp at the practices, he might 
sing bass for his-self in the future ; as he — Mr. Doughty 
— wasn’t going to stand up there to be spoke to before 
a lot of hoys. He should go to chapel next Sunday, 
where folks knew when they’d got hold of a tidy singer, 
and behaved according.” 

Mr. Beeper’s forehead crumpled itself up very much. 
His charming castles resolved themselves into the fine 
air out of which they were originally constructed. He 
gave up thinking of the conquest of the fair daughter 
of the Philistines for a time, and plunged wearily back 
into the actual. 

But though vexation, and the sudden reaction from 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 


97 


his unusually exalted state of feeling, caused him thus 
to put the idea aside for a "while, he did not relinquish 
it altogether. He was sensible that there was a new 
element in his life. 

At last Mr. Mainwaring came home, and the inmates 
of the Rectory were awakened from the state of torpor 
and discomfort in which they had existed since the 
evening of the thunder-storm. Nothing regarding Eliz- 
abeth’s revolt was said on the night of his return. In- 
deed, it would have been difficult to get time to make 
any announcement. Mr. Mainwaring was not usually a 
great talker ; but he kept up the pretty old-fashioned 
habit — falling sadly into disuse in these hurrying days 
— of telling his wife “ all about it ” when he came home 
from any little journey. What he had said, and what 
everybody else had said ; what he had done willingly, 
and what he had been compelled to do unwillingly ; re- 
pairs, gates, and fences ; this man’s beasts, and that 
man’s sheep ; what local magnates had called ; what 
sort of dinners the bailiff’s wife had prepared for him ; 
how late the train was ; how long he took going here 
and going there ; finally, how glad he was to be at home 
again — all these matters were retailed with simple 
cheery dignity as though highly important, and received 
by Mrs. Mainwaring with unwavering attention and ap- 
propriate remarks. It was a very real relief to both 
women to listen to this stream of unagitating talk after 
the silence and constraint of the last week. It was com- 
fortable and reassuring to have the sound of a man’s 
footstep about the house again, and to hear Mr. Main- 
waring clear his throat in that loud, unmitigated way so 
much affected by the English country gentleman. 

Elizabeth was rather excited, and almost disposed 
6 


98 


MRS. LORIMER. 


to repent of her decided action regarding the London 
house. She regretted that she had not had an opportu- 
nity of talking the matter fairly over with her uncle ; 
now she feared he would hear a very one-sided account 
of the business from her aunt. Having decided for her- 
self, she felt it would he out of place for her to speak 
to him on the subject first ; he must speak to her, and 
he could only do so when Mrs. Mainwaring had put 
him in possession of the facts from her point of view. 

Elizabeth had a large confidence in Mr. Mainwar- 
ings’s charity and comprehension : she felt sure he 
would not judge her harshly or narrowly ; still he 
would be pained, he must be pained, at learning her 
strongly expressed desire — and it would lose none of its 
force in her aunt’s recital of it — to leave Claybrooke. 
Most likely Mrs. Mainwaring would have the .whole 
matter out with her husband next morning ; to-night 
she was evidently too happy at getting him back, and 
had too much respect for the time-honored custom of 
“ hearing all about it,” to interrupt the harmony of the 
occasion by the introduction of jarring home matters. 
To-morrow poor Elizabeth felt she would be judged ; 
she almost prayed that the verdict might be a merciful 
one. She had taken the responsibility upon herself : 
she intended to depart ; but she earnestly desired to de- 
part in peace — at least with her Uncle Gerald. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


“We fell out, my wife and I, 

Oh ! we fell out, I know not why. 

And kissed again with tears.” 

Tpieee had been a heavy shower of rain in the 
night, and the morning was hot, damp, and steamy, 
even on the high land where the village stood. Down 
in the valley, and along the winding course of the 
brook, lay long lines of mist, which the sun, veiled by a 
layer of thin gray cloud, had not as yet sufficient power 
to burn up. It was one of those very quiet summer 
mornings when the damp earth smells sweet ; and the 
cattle lie lazily down in the rich growing grass ; and 
the birds keep up such a lively search over lawns and 
garden-beds for worms, that they have hardly time to 
sing. 

Mr. Mainwaring stood on the flight of stone steps 
which led from the bow-window of his study down into 
the garden. He was smoking a comfortable after- 
breakfast cigar, and looking over the day’s paper, which 
Bunton had just brought him. Mr. Mainwaring was in 
a particularly pleasant and serene attitude of mind. He 
was conscious of having done a good week’s work, and 
of being glad to be at home again. He felt a quiet sat- 
isfaction at being surrounded with familiar objects, and 
at being sure that there would be no peculiarities in the 


100 


MES. LOEIMEK. 


cooking of his dinner ; he thoroughly appreciated the 
order and solid comfort of his own house after his short 
absence from home. 

Billy and Boxer, the two fox-terriers, sat on the 
gravel walk just in front of him, in a trembling agony 
of repressed excitement ; prepared, if their master 
showed the smallest disposition of quitting his present 
occupation and going for a stroll, first to spring into 
the air with frantic joy, and then rush madly after him 
and before him in any direction. Rufus, the brown 
retriever, lay on the steps in a state of absolute repose, 
occasionally turning a meditative and contemptuous eye 
upon the two anxious watchers below. He possessed 
all the dignified calmness of manner which belongs to 
an assured position in the world ; while the fox-terriers 
were victims to the ill-regulated vivacity of youth, and 
to that excessive desire for notice which belongs both 
to dogs and men who are still on their promotion. 

The blue smoke-wreaths from Mr. Mainwaring’e 
cigar rose and floated out slowly on the heavy air. He 
felt thoroughly contented with himself, and at peace 
with all mankind — not the most violent speech of the 
most Radical member of the Government would have 
had power to irritate him greatly just then. 

The inner door of the study opened gently. Mr. 
Mainwaring looked round with a smile ; he recognized 
at once the quiet way in which his wife always opened 
and shut a door — without noise and without hurry. 

‘‘Well, Susie,” he said, still smiling, and using, nat- 
urally enough in his present complacent state of mind, 
the old pet-name by which he had called her in pleasant 
hours for so many years~“well, Susie, what do you 
want ? ” 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. IQl 

Mrs. JVIainwaring was just a trifle nervous ; she 
walked rather more rapidly than usual across the room 
to the open window, looking at her husband all the 
while with a timid suggestion of apology in her expres- 
sion. She saw that he was happy and contented. She 
came as the bearer of evil tidings, and it grieved her. 

“ I am so sorry to interrupt you, Gerald,” she said, 
laying a small dainty hand upon the arm of his rough 
shooting-coat ; ‘‘ but I have been sadly disturbed and 
distressed while you have been away. I had no oppor- 
tunity of talking to you last night, but I’m afraid I 
must trouble you with it this morning.” 

Dear me ! ” said the Rector, looking down at her, 
‘‘what’s the matter? Has Jones broken out in vest- 
ments all of a sudden ? — or has there been a row with 
Evans about the widows’ outdoor relief ? That fellow 
Keeper’s always making some bother at the board, and 
trying to make Evans cut off a shilling here and a loaf 
there. If there was any chance of that man’s having to 
go into the house himself some day, he’d look at the 
matter from a very much more merciful point of view, 
I suspect.” 

IVIr. Mainwaring took a long pull at his cigar in 
rather a vindictive way, as if by so doing he hoped, in 
some mysterious manner, to reduce Mr. Keeper’s income 
so sensibly, that that obnoxious individual might speed- 
ily find himself in imminent danger of ending his days 
in the workhouse. 

“ It has nothing to do with Evans,” answered Mrs. 
Mainwaring. » In truth she found it very difficult, with 
her husband standing there unsuspicious of any serious 
trouble, to embark in her story. 

“Johnson hasn’t given warning, I hope?” said Mr. 


102 


MRS. LORIMER. 


Mainwaring. “I spoke to him rather sharply, just be- 
fore I went away, about leaving the carriage-drive in 
such a mess. He was surly, but I thought he’d have 
got over it by the time I came back.” 

‘‘Mo; Johnson is just as civil and respectful as 
usual.” 

Mrs. Mainwaring sat down. There was a favorite 
arm-chair of the Rector’s drawn into the window, and 
she felt that she could talk better sitting down. Her 
heart was beating fast, and it was a little trying to 
stand up. 

“It is about Elizabeth, Gerald,” she said, “that I 
want to speak to you.” 

“ Elizabeth ? ” 

The Rector took his cigar out of his mouth, and let 
the newspaper drop to the ground — ^thereby causing 
Billy and Boxer to jump at the wholly unwarrantable 
conclusion that he was going for a walk, and throwing 
them into a frightful state of agitation. 

“ Get down, dogs,” he said, rather roughly, and then 
added, “ Why, my dear, what in the world has Lizzie 
done ? ” 

“ Elizabeth hasn’t done anything yet,” replied Mrs. 
Mainwaring. “But she proposes doing something 
which I am sure, Gerald, you will agree with me in 
thinking most undesirable.” 

“ Indeed ! ” said Mr. Mainwaring, with a touch of 
surprise. 

Gerald Mainwaring loved his wife very faithfully — 
too faithfully to stand aside from and criticise her. He 
would not permit himself to be clear-sighted regarding 
her. The boyish devotion with which, as a tall, fine- 
looking lad, he had wooed and won pretty Susan Sel- 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 103 


ford — with her sweet pink-and-white face and little, 
clustering, auburn curls — arose in him even now and 
blinded him to her faults, and weaknesses, and imper- 
fections. Only when she laid hands on Elizabeth, who 
looked at him with the same clear gray eyes and spoke 
to him in the same full-toned voice, as the younger 
brother whom he lost years ago and mourned so deeply 
— then, and then only, did Gerald Mainwaring’s loyalty 
relax a little, and did he allow himself to question, for 
a moment, the entire wisdom of his wife’s thought and 
action. 

Her husband’s tone might have warned Mrs. Main- 
waring that he was not prepared to be actively sympa- 
’thetic : but the whole bitterness of the scene with her 
niece and of her own subsequent meditations, over- 
whelmed her as soon as she had fairly begun her narra- 
tion. She went on with an almost painful insistence, 
and with very little perception of her listener’s real 
state of mind. 

“Elizabeth,” she said, “is tired of Claybrooke al- 
ready, Gerald. She told me so violently, and without 
any regard for my feelings. Her heart is set upon being 
a great deal with poor Mr. Lorimer’s relations, of whom, 
I’m sure, you have just the same opinion that I have 
myself — very respectable people perhaps for their posi- 
tion in life, but not at all the sort of companions we 
should choose for Elizabeth.” 

“ Ah ! ” said the Hector. The thought of the 
Frank Lorimers was unpalatable to him ; still he did 
not like to have Elizabeth blamed. 

“ She can not be content with what we have to offer 
her here,” Mrs. Main waring continued. “ She told me 
very plainly that our neighbors bored her to death. 


104 : 


MES. LOEIMER. 


She is full of all sorts of wild ideas about a larger life, 
great interests, and I don’t know what besides. I should 
not have thought Elizabeth capable of using such very- 
strong expressions as she did.” 

“And when did all this happen ? ” asked Mr. Main- 
waring. He wanted to get hold of his facts before vent- 
uring into the slippery region of opinions. 

“ The day you went away. There was a thunder- 
storm, as I wrote you word, when I was driving back 
from Slowby. I arrived at home very much agitated — 
you know how I dislike thunder — and Elizabeth was 
most loving and gentle to me” — Mrs. Main waring 
paused. She had a painful choking sensation in her 
throat, just for a moment, but she mastered it and went . 
on : “ And then I most unfortunately asked some ques- 
tions about a letter from her lawyer, and this terrible 
scene was the result.” 

“Well, and what does Elizabeth propose to do?” 
inquired Mr. Mainwaring, still anxious to possess him- ’ 
self of facts. 

“Why, she declares she will go up and settle in 
London alone. Fancy, alone, Gerald, at her age ! — a 
mere girl like her. It is impossible — it would be abso- 
lutely scandalous if we allowed her to.” 

“But where does she mean to live?” asked the 
Rector. 

“In the house poor Mr. Lorimer left her. Didn’t 
I tell you the tenant gives it up in September ? That 
was what her lawyer wrote about.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Mr. Mainwaring slowly. 

He began to see daylight now, but he wanted a few 
minutes to arrange his ideas before he spoke. He was 
still standing on the step just outside the open bow- 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 105 

window, and he turned and looked out over the lawn. 
Billy and Boxer had gone off in despair, and were doing 
a little independent rabbiting in the shrubbery on the 
left. The Rector could see their white bodies glancing 
in and out of the underwood as they ran hither and 
thither. He whistled to them once or twice ; not be- 
cause he in the least wanted them, but merely because 
he wanted to gain time. 

Mrs. Mainwaring sat up stiffly in the arm-chair. 
She had not produced the effect she had intended to, 
and was feeling a little piqued at her husband’s appar- 
ent indifference. Words did not come easily to her, 
and she was afraid she had given rather a lame account 
of the affair. She had hoped for instant justification 
and strong support — she did not despair of getting it 
even now : but it seemed to linger a good deal on the 
road, and meanwhile she felt somewhat sore and in- 
jured. 

At last Mr. Mainwaring turned round. There Tvas 
a strangely wistful look on his face, which became his 
stern features wonderfully well. It was a look that 
Mrs. Mainwaring could remember long years ago. She 
thought he had looked like that sometimes when he 
used to say good-by to her, after one of those happy 
days at Selford Hall, before they married. 

He said quite quietly : 

“ I’m afraid we must let the child go, Susan.” 

Gerald ! ” cried Mrs. Mainwaring, amazed and out- 
raged beyond words. 

“We’ve no right to keep her,” he went on sadly, 
“ just to please our own eyes with her grace and beauty. 
You and I are growing old, Susie, and this house is dull 
for her. The young love the young, you know — we did, 


106 


MPwS. LORIMER. 


and why shouldn’t she ? Of course she wants to get 
away and be with people of her own age.” 

Mr. Mainwaring looked out over the lawn again to- 
ward the shrubbery, but he did not see anything very 
clearly : there was a mist before his eyes. 

For a minute or two neither spoke ; then Mrs. Main- 
waring asked coldly : 

“ But how is she to live alone ? ” 

“ Oh ! I suppose she’ll find servants as other people 
do. You’d better send Smart or Martha with her . to 
help her manage at first.” 

This was just the last straw to poor Mrs. Mainwaring. 
That Elizabeth should go unpunished — nay, that she 
should be supported in her rebellion — was surely bad 
enough : but, as a climax, that she — Susan Mainwaring 
— should be ordered to give up one of her two favorite 
servants, to prevent this young prodigal suffering in any 
degree from the result of her own rash actions, was in- 
tolerable and not to be endured. As soon as she was 
sufficiently recovered from the shock to be capable of 
speaking at all, Mrs. Mainwaring said, in a harsh, deep- 
ly-displeased voice : 

‘‘Yqu surprise me, Gerald. I did not expect this 
from you. It seems that I and the comfort of our house- 
hold— everything, in fact, is to be sacrificed to Eliza- 
beth’s headstrong whims and fancies.” 

‘‘ I can not see that we have any right to prevent 
her going,” he said again. “ I don’t want to make you 
unhappy, or part you and Lizzie, God knows, Susan, 
but I can’t see any other way out of this business.” 

Oh ! that I only had a child of my own ! ” cried 
Mrs. Mainwaring suddenly, in her extreme distress. She 
pressed her hands passionately together, and her face 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 107 

grew pale and pincLed with the excess of her emo- 
tion. 

Mr. Mainwaring drew himself up to his full height, 
and an unpleasant straight line cut itself deep into his 
forehead, between his thick grisled eyebrows. 

These two people very rarely mentioned the real 
sorrow of their lives to each other ; but it was hardly 
ever absent from Mrs. Mainwaring’s mind, all the same. 
The want, the disappointment, was always present with 
her, terrible, urgent, importunate. She tried to hide 
and conceal it, and only in moments of very strong 
feeling did she give voice to the sorrow that she always 
felt. 

Mr. Mainwaring had desired a child as ardently as 
his wife. At this moment he would have given his 
right hand to see a tall handsome boy, who would call 
him father, leap that sunk fence out of the meadow and 
swing across the smooth lawn to greet him. But men 
are much less impatient of the inevitable than women. 
Mr. Mainwaring had got accustomed to the fact of hav- 
ing no child. It was, speaking paradoxically, one of 
the very foundation-stones of his life, utterly immova- 
ble. ISTothing could alter the fact. He took it for 
granted ; and it was only when his wife’s bitter cry 
rang in his ears, as it did just now, that he realized 
clearly how great his loss was. 

‘‘ The very tramp under the hedge has children, and 
why not I ? ” cried Mrs. Mainwaring again. 

The Rector stepped inside the window : he laid his 
hand quietly on her shoulder. 

My darling,” he said, ‘‘ if you had had a child it 
might have caused you infinitely deeper sorrow than 
any you know now. Your heart is empty : but it might 


108 


MES. LOEIMER. 


have been tortured and broken with agony of which, 
thank God, you know nothing.” 

He waited a moment, and then added : 

We have each other, after all, Susie, and the mem- 
ory of long, peaceful years to look back upon. And I 
hope — though we might have done more for this place 
—that still we have not lived here quite in vain, and 
that we shall leave things just a trifle better than we 
found them. Take comfort, dear heart ; let the child 
go, and trust for the best in the future.” 

Mrs. Mainwaring stood up. Her heart melted within 
her. 

“ Gerald,” she said very quietly, and, putting her 
arms round his neck, gave him a long, sighing kiss. 

The flrst kiss of the youth and the maiden — he in 
the glory of his strength and she in the glory of her 
: beauty — is the very blossom of life, the inspiration of 
; the poet, and makes the round world laugh with joy. 
/ iHiit the kiss of man and wife, in the dusty afternoon of 
i :life, when the transport and illusion of youth are dead, 
f after long years of disappointment, struggle, and hope 
I grown tired in the stress and strain of daily living — the 
■ , kiss of those two, pausing for a moment and turning to 
i 1 each other in faithful love, while the road stretches out 
i I before them, pale and misty, into the silence of the 
; great unknown land — telling, as it does, of vanquished 
temptation and patient endurance, may well All heaven 
itself and the clear-eyed passionless angels with a solemn 
gladness. 

Mrs. Mainwaring’s soul received comfort. She pro- 
tested no longer ; she would utter no complaint, though 
the most excellent of her maids was taken from her. 
She did not approve, but for love’s dear sake she sub- 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 109 


mitted. She would let Elizabeth Lorimer depart in 
peace. 

When he was left alone, Mr. Mainwaring took a turn 
or two up and down the study. He had been deeply 
moved. For a moment he had seemed to look into the 
everlasting heart of things. It was a fine sensation un- 
doubtedly ; but the air on these extreme heights of feel- 
ing is too highly rarefied for ordinary human lungs to 
stand it long. The Rector felt he must descend to lower 
ground again as soon as possible, and walk in common, 
comfortable, every-day paths. He shrank '■modestly 
from the thought of his own emotion, and wanted to 
get back to his usual level without delay. There was 
none of that unwholesome sentimentality about him 
which treasures up and caresses the remembrance of 
strong feeling, when the feeling itself has passed away. 
He went out on to the steps and drew a long breath of 
the sweet summer air ; flung away the stump of his 
cigar, and, picking up the paper, tried to compose him- 
self by glancing over the foreign telegrams, the weather 
forecast, and the state of the markets. 

By this time the morning was pretty far advanced, 
and the sun had risen high, overcoming the clouds which 
had obscured it earlier, and burning up the mists which 
lingered about the valley. It was evidently going to 
be a roasting day. 

The two terriers, tired with their excursion into the 
shrubbery, were lying panting on the gravel walk with 
their red tongues lolling out of their mouths. They 
were very hot, and yet they earnestly desired some 
fresh excitement, having, like most light-minded people, 
an unlimited swallow for sensation of any kind. The 
Rector was just settling down comfortably to the news 


110 


MBS. LOEIMER. 


from Constantinople, and the latest fight in the French 
Chamber, when a little incident occurred which satisfied 
the dogs’ craving for diversion, and thi’eatened to force 
Mr. Mainwaring back into the region of emotion from 
which he was just successfully escaping. 

Elizabeth had roamed aimlessly about the house for 
some time after breakfast. She fully expected a sum- 
mons from her aunt or uncle, and listened rather anx- 
iously for a call or for the ringing of the study bell ; 
but the house was unusually quiet. She could hear the 
maids moving about in the upper rooms, and talking a 
little over their work. The warm air was filled with 
the drowsy hum of bees, which, attracted by the plants 
and cut flowers in the sitting-rooms, had wandered in 
through the wide-open windows, and were now becom- 
ing a little worried and angry in their unsuccessful ef- 
forts to get out again. Elizabeth grew more and more 
nervous. It is horrible to know that people are dis- 
cussing you and your conduct, especially when you have 
a lurking suspicion that it is possible to view both one 
and the other in a very unpleasant light. Elizabeth 
found that she could not fix her attention on anything ; 
her thoughts would keep wandering away to the study, 
and to the little scene which was probably being enacted 
there. At last she picked up a book, and, taking her 
parasol, made her way out into the garden, hoping to 
attain there to that philosophic calm of mind which was 
obviously unattainable indoors. 

She thought, after wandering about for a little while, 
that she would go to the Broad Walk, which at this 
time of day would be pleasantly shaded ; and where, 
as the wind was in the west, she would benefit by all 
the breeze that might be stirring. To reach this cool 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. HI 


retreat slie liad to cross the bottom of the lawn on to 
which the study-windows opened. 

Billy and Boxer seeing Elizabeth in the distance, as 
she walked slowly across the lawn, and thinking that 
she presented an excellent object on which to expend 
their superfluous energies — and thinking also that she 
might possibly be coaxed into taking them for a walk — 
made a simultaneous rush at her over the grass, and 
leaped up on her with excited and foolish delight. 

Mr. Mainwaring, aware — even amid the flery asser- 
tions and denunciations of the members of the French 
Chamber — that something had moved near him, looked 
up sharply, and, perceiving Elizabeth’s predicament, 
shouted to the dogs and hurried across to her rescue. 

He thought Elizabeth wonderfully pretty, as with a 
flushed face, half vexed and half laughing, she struggled 
with her book, and parasol, and the two irrepressible 
terriers, all at once. 

“ I wish you would teach your dogs to practice a 
little more self-control. Uncle Gerald,” she said, looking 
up at him — quite forgetting in the confusion of the mo- 
ment that Mr. Mainwaring had, in all probability, just 
been hearing a very full and particular account of her 
sins. ‘‘They have almost torn me to pieces, and made 
me so frightfully hot.” 

He did not answer, but applied himself to reducing 
the two delinquents, by a short and summary process, 
to a becoming state of humility and obedience. Then 
taking Elizabeth’s book from her he walked silently be- 
side her to the Broad Walk. 

As she recovered from the flurry of the last few 
moments all her nervousness returned. Her uncle’s si- 
lence made her fear that he might have accepted Mrs. 


112 


MRS. LOEIMER. 


Mainwaring’s account of their difference of opinion as 
literally true, and might put the worst construction on 
her action. She was afraid he thought her ungrateful 
and inconsiderate, indifferent not only to her relations’ 
pleasure, but wanting — as Mrs. Main waring had told 
her — in proper respect to her husband’s memory. If 
Mr. Mainwaring did think these things, then Elizabeth 
felt that she should be deeply ashamed, that she should 
lose her self-confidence, and be obliged to confess that 
she had made a most contemptible mistake. 

Stung by a sharp sense of discomfort and self-dis- 
trust, Elizabeth stopped suddenly and glanced at Mr. 
Mainwaring, hoping to gather some information from 
the expression of his face. Their eyes met. Mr. Main- 
waring looked at the beautiful young woman earnestly 
and sadly, for a moment, then he said : 

So you want to go away from us, Lizzie ? ” 

The tone of her uncle’s voice affected Elizabeth 
strongly : but she read in his face that he did not 
wholly condemn her, and immediately she desired to 
justify herself. She dug the point of her parasol rather 
nervously into the ground as she spoke, but she an- 
swered clearly and directly : 

I have several good reasons for wishing to go up 
to London this winter. I believe that I owe a certain 
duty to Robert’s relations.” 

She paused a moment, and Mr. Mainwaring turned 
his head away. There was something very painful to 
him in the thought that this young creature was a wid- 
ow. It seemed so incongruous, so out of the reasonable 
course of things. He disliked to hear her make any di- 
rect allusion to her husband. 

‘‘I know Aunt Susan does not recognize any duty to 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 113 


them on my part, but I can’t help that. I must judge 
for myself in some matters.” 

Elizabeth drew herself up a little proudly. She had 
regained her confidence in the justice of her own cause. 

“Yes,” said Mr. Mainwaring, speaking slowly, “so 
I have been telling your aunt. You want to see more 
of the world than you can in a quiet, out-of-the-way, 
country parsonage like this. It is quite natural. I don’t 
blame you. You are still very young, and life is still 
full of promise to you. Everything here is old, and has 
very little promise in it — except the sure promise of de- 
cay,” he added, half to himself, smiling rather sadly, 
and sticking out his under lip. 

Elizabeth turned to him suddenly. 

“ I don’t want to leave you,” she said, with emphasis. 

“ Ah ! but there’s the rub, Lizzie,” answered the Rec- 
tor. “You see, unfortunately in this world we can’t 
take a bit here and a bit there, just as we like. With a 
little trouble we can generally get the thing we want : 
but in the getting of it we are pretty sure to lose some- 
thing else we care a good deal about too. It isn’t pleas- 
ant, my dear, but like a good many other unpleasant 
things it’s true.” 

Mr. Mainwaring spoke seriously, out of the fullness 
of his own experience. Elizabeth stood gazing away 
to the far blue horizon, and wishing that Truth was of 
a less harsh and angular nature. That the law of all 
attainment should be sacrifice — in some form or other — 
seems r^her hard at one-and-twenty. 

“So, my dear child,” said Mr. Mainwaring more 
cheerfully, “ see and know all that you can. Live in 
the thick of the stir and the turmoil. And then some 
day, perhaps, when you have grown a little sick and 


■ 114 


MRS. LORIMER. 

tii’ed of it all — most people grow sick and tired at last 
—you may be glad to come back to poor, sleepy, old 
Claybrooke again.’’ 

Elizabeth might go, but she wanted more than just 
leave to do that. She wanted to feel sure that it was 
air right between her and her uncle. She laid her hand 
gently on his arm, and said simply, as she might have 
done when she was quite a little child : 

‘‘ But you’re sure you are not very angry with me. 
Uncle Gerald?” 

“ 1^0, no,” he answered quickly, looking at her with 
keen, kindly gray eyes. “ I have never been very angry 
with you in all your life, have I, Lizzie ? Come, now, 
that matter’s settled and done with. W e’ll say no more 
about it, but go round to the stables and have a look at 
the horses.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


“ Eemember, if you mean to please, 

To press your point with modesty and ease.” 

It would not be true to say that the energetic and 
active Vicar of Lowcote bad actually fallen in love with 
Elizabeth Lorimer on the hot afternoon when, deserted 
half-way by worthy Mr. Harbage, he called alone at 
Claybrooke Rectory. Falling in love is altogether too 
poetical and fanciful a term to apply justly to Mr. 
Leeper’s state of feeling. Yet when he recovered from 
the irritation into which his squire’s letter, and Mr. 
Doughty’s disposition to join a schismatic and heretical 
body, had thrown him, he began to think almost oftener 
than he wished of Mrs. Lorimer. 

Of all things in the world, he loved power. He 
would use power for the best and highest ends, of 
course, but still the enjoyment of the mere possession 
of it was enormous to him. As he prepared severe ser- 
mons in his bleak uncomfortable study ; as he went 
about his parish admonishing the backsliders, and giv- 
ing rather grim consolation to the afflicted ; even in 
church on Sunday, Mr. Leeper could not help seeing 
visions of all he might gain, of the extended sphere of 
influence he might possess, if — he really hardly liked to 
put the thought into words — he could marry Mrs. Lori- 
mer ! How far her personal charms influenced him. 


116 


MES. LOEIMEK. ' 


Mr. Leeper did not care to ask himself. He affected a 
certain asceticism of thought, which made him disin- 
clined to admit that he was in any way moved by the 
fact that Mrs. Lorimer was a singularly handsome 
woman. He had never quite decided in his own mind 
whether celibacy was not, after all, the higher state. 
Certain expressions of St. Paul’s, bearing apparently 
on the subject, troubled him a good deal ; not to men- 
tion the very clearly expressed views of many of the 
Fathers. 

Mr. Leeper believed he was working for a great 
Cause. He was a young man and spelt the word with 
a capital letter, though perhaps he would have found it 
a little difficult to define exactly what he meant by it. 
Anyway, he was enthusiastically devoted to the un- 
known quantity represented by this word ; and — so 
strangely do we, even the most earnest of us, deceive 
and mystify ourselves — ^he was prepared to persuade 
himself that there was a touch of noble self-sacrifice in 
giving up the honors of the celibate priest, if by mar- 
rying he could advance the opinions and reforms which 
he believed would be so beneficial both to the Church 
and people of England. Mr. Leeper must not be ac- 
cused of being mercenary. It would not satisfy him 
merely to carry off the fair daughter of the Philistines. 
She must be converted too, and work as earnestly for 
the Cause as he did himself. Mr. Leeper had often 
said rather sharp things about the excellent ladies of 
the clergy, and their undeniable power of setting their 
husbands and their husbands’ parishioners by the ears. 
But Mr. Leeper did his best to forget his own accusa- 
tions and statements now. Gradually he began to see 
that there might be a good deal, under certain circum- 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 117 


stances, to be said for a married clergy. He was rather 
annoyed when he detected an inclination in himself 
toward this modification of his views ; but still the 
thought of Mrs. Lorimer haunted him, and, after a 
week or two, he became very anxious to see her again. 
Heretofore, however, his visits to Claybrooke Rectory 
had resembled those of angels, at least in the particular 
of being “ few, and far between ; ” and he did not see 
his way now to changing his custom and calling there 
frequently for no ostensible cause. 

After the interview with her husband, Mrs. Main- 
waring had taken up a new attitude with regard to 
Elizabeth’s plans. She did not pretend to think it de- 
sirable that her niece should settle alone in London, and 
become a recognized member of the Frank Lorimers’ 
dangerous and Bohemian set ; but she exerted a severe 
self-control, and managed to abstain from any more 
open objections. She was supported by a very sincere 
wish to please Mr. Mainwaring, and by a comfortable 
sense that, for his sake, she was nobly enduring a mild 
form of martyrdom. The sacrifice of her own opinions 
was valuable, she felt, in proportion as it was painful. 
She would deny Gerald nothing ; but it would be un- 
reasonable to expect that she should forego a little 
secret self-complacency when she remembered how 
much she was giving up to please him. Martha should 
go with Elizabeth — that, of course, was determined. 
It was the very crown and glory of her self-abnegation. 
And, when her niece protested against thus depriving 
her of a valued and trusted servant, Mrs. Mainwaring 
firmly intimated that ‘‘there were limits even to her 
powers of giving way ; ” that Elizabeth, being left in 
all other ways entire mistress of her own actions, must. 


118 


MKS. LORIMER. 


in this one particular, respect the wishes of those who, 
“ though they were perhaps behind the world, were still 
not entirely devoid of common sense.” Metaphorically 
speaking, Mrs. Mainwaring regarded the worthy and 
excellent Martha in the light of the proverbial “ coals 
of fire,” and heaped her with much stern joy upon 
Elizabeth’s devoted head. 

Mrs. Mainwaring indulged, too, in another delicate 
form of revenge. She did not conceal the fact that she 
was terribly oppressed and worried by the thought of 
having to engage a fresh housemaid. She drew dismal 
pictures of dusty corners, of broken china, and of quar- 
rels for precedence in the servants’ hall. Smart, of 
course, did her best to deepen her mistress’s melancholy. 
She had fought deadly battles with Martha many times 
during the years they had lived together ; but now, in 
the face of her approaching departure. Smart saw her 
fellow-servant’s virtues in the highest relief, and fore- 
told ruin and disaster in the event of any change. 

About three weeks after the Rector’s return, Mrs. 
Mainwaring decided one day to drive over to Lowcote, 
and pour forth all her domestic griefs to Mrs. Adnitt, 
who had the reputation of being an admirable house- 
wife, and who might possibly be able to recommend her 
some jewel of a housemaid. 

Elizabeth was in a very submissive state of mind ; 
she tried to conciliate Mrs. Mainwaring in all small 
ways, after having opposed her so vigorously in one 
large one. Of course she was willing to go to Lowcote 
or anywhere else at that rate, when her aunt asked her. 

Mr. Leeper happened to be standing just inside the 
doorway of one of the Lowcote cottages as the Clay- 
brooke carriage rolled up the village street in a cloud 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 119 


of dust. He was delivering himself of rather strong 
expressions regarding the iniquity of parents who did 
not send their children regularly to school. His listen- 
er, a stout, comfortable-looking woman — to whose mind 
che advantages of a high standard of education had 
never presented themselves very forcibly — kept her eyes 
fixed on the open door, with a provoking and stolid in- 
difference to her minister’s fiery denunciations. Though 
apparently her attention was wholly absorbed in watch- 
ing what was passing outside, she was really prepared, 
at the very first opportunity, to open a lively fire of 
querulous objections and excuses upon her unwelcome 
guest. Mr. Leeper heard the carriage go by, and invol- 
untarily looked round. He caught sight of Elizabeth 
Lorimer’s face, and, ending his peroration rather hastily, 
left the good woman with her mouth open just ready to 
begin her string of objections, and hurried up the village 
street in the direction in which the carriage had gone. 

Lowcote House stands, like many of our Midland- 
shire houses, in a hollow, backed by woods. To the 
south the gardens and lawns stretch toward a broad 
piece of artificial water, where coots and moor-hens 
svam busily about among the green lily-pads and float- 
ing weeds. Beyond are pastures with their herds of 
quiet cattle ; and plow-lands covered, at the time of 
which we are speaking, with yellow standing corn. 
Beyond, again, are line after line of blue hedgerows 
and round-headed elm-trees, broken here and there by 
the tall straight spire of a solitary poplar, and fading 
at last into the faint tender gray of the horizon — a 
common type of midland landscape, but pleasant, in 
sunny summer weather, with a suggestion of prosperity 
and repose. 


120 


MES. LORIMEK. 


Life would be very dull in tbe country unless we all 
prided ourselves a good deal on our own possessions ; 
and indulged in a wholesome contempt — not unmixed 
with envy sometimes — for the possessions of our neigh- 
bors. Mrs. Adnitt prided herself on the beauty of her 
flowers, the smoothness of her lawns, and on the wide 
stretch of her view. When you called on her, you were 
certain to be conveyed out into the garden — let the grass 
be as damp as it might — and were expected to fall into 
discreet ecstasies concerning the said lawns, flowers, and 
view. Mrs. Mainwaring and Elizabeth, of course, suf- 
fered this fate. 

Mrs. Adnitt established herself and her guests in 
garden-chairs under a broad, spreading cedar-tree, and 
then plunged into the edifying question of housemaids. 

Elizabeth tried to feel interested in housemaids, but 
her domestic instincts were not very strong, and the 
subject palled upon her after a while. She tried to 
amuse herself by watching the coots darting about 
among the green lily-leaves on the pond : but there 
seemed no particular object in all their hurried, fussy 
gyrations, and she felt a little provoked with so much 
cheerful alacrity all about nothing. In fact, Elizabeth 
was a good deal bored ; and, for the second time during 
their acquaintance, she was far from displeased at the 
advent of Mr. Leeper, when that gentleman’s tall, an- 
gular, black figure emerged from the house, and he 
came across the turf to the little group under the cedar- 
tree. 

The two elder ladies were too much engrossed in 
their conversation to have any time to bestow upon the 
new-comer ; it followed therefore that after a very few 
minutes Mr. Leeper found himself perfectly free to de- 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 121 

vote his undivided attention to Elizabeth Lorimer. He 
drew up a chair almost in front of her, and prepared to 
make the most of his unexpected opportunity. 

Mr. Deeper was not naturally a diffident person, es- 
pecially when he had some end which he wanted to 
gain in view. He was not at all in the habit of feeling 
any lack of self-confidence : hut on this occasion he did 
feel slightly embarrassed. The garden-chair was low, 
and he was conscious that it forced him into a rather 
unbecoming position. He looked, in fact, very much 
like a diagram of right angles. It was Mr. Leeper’s 
misfortune always to suggest to one’s mind a problem 
in Euclid rather than any satisfactory type of human 
beauty. He had been thinking so frequently during 
the last few weeks about the handsome, graceful young 
woman who sat opposite to him, that he could not help 
having a sort of nervous sense that she must be some- 
what aware of his thoughts and plans concerning her. 
Then her very beauty was disturbing. Mr. Deeper 
began to fear that the world at large might hardly rec- 
ognize his entire disinterestedness in sacrificing himself 
upon the altar of Hymen for the sake of the Cause. 
Still he did not swerve from his purpose. In truth, the 
purpose seemed to become more clear and distinct every 
moment. The glories of his promised millennium 
seemed to glow around him. The triumph of wisdom 
— his own opinion — over folly — other people’s opinions 
— seemed beautifully sure and certain. But first he 
must try to convince and convert this charming woman. 
On the whole, he could not help fancying that she 
seemed a little glad to see him. 

After a few preliminary observations about the 
weather and the crops — two subjects which stand on 


122 


MRS. LORIMER. 


the threshold of conversation, and must be overcome 
before an attempt upon more interesting themes is pos- 
sible — Mr. Leeper began to discourse ardently about 
those matters which lay so near his heart. He was 
most anxious to know how far his companion was of 
his way of thinking ; how far there was a hope of im- 
buing her with a real enthusiasm for the Cause. He 
talked well about the questions he cared for ; and now, 
inspired by the determination to impress and, if neces- 
sary, convert her, he became almost eloquent. 

At last, Mrs. Adnitt and Mrs. Mainwaring, having, 
after much confabulation, pretty well exhausted the 
prolific subject of housemaids, rose from their chairs. 

“We are going to the conservatory, Elizabeth,” 
said Mrs. Mainwaring, turning to her niece. “ Are you 
not coming with us ? ” 

Elizabeth felt that the inquiry partook somewhat of 
the nature of a command. Her aunt evidently thought 
she had bestowed quite sufficient attention upon Mr. 
Leeper. But she was interested in the conversation, 
and felt no disposition to cut it short. 

“ ril follow you in a minute or two. Aunt Susan,” 
she answered, smiling at the two ladies. “ I know how 
lovely Mrs. Adnitt’s flowers always are.” 

Mrs. Mainwaring waited for a moment : but Eliza- 
beth sat still— so absolutely refusing to take her gentle 
hint that^s|^ had nothing left but to turn away with 
her hostess, leaving her niece and Mr. Leeper deep in 
conversation. 

“I am very much interested in all you have been 
saying,” said Elizabeth, as soon as they were alone. “ I 
can quite imagine that these subjects might become 
very absorbing : but, for my own part, I am afraid I 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 123 

am too selfish and indolent to care very much about 
them.” 

She looked at Mr. Deeper as she spoke rather fixedly 
what a pity it was that his forehead went into such 
hard lines, and that his face had always a touch of vex- 
ation in its expression ! 

“You do yourself an injustice, believe me, Mrs. 
Lorimer,” said he earnestly, leaning forward with his 
hands on his knees, and looking more rectangular than 
ever. “ You may have had disadvantages, you may 
have had no opportunity of studying these, things : 
but if you once understood their immense importance 
you would, I am sure, take an active, practical interest 
in them. Think what a noble work — assuring and con- 
solidating the position of the Church, helping forward 
the cause of progress and morality among the masses ! 
Ah,” said Mr. Deeper, inspired with the magnitude of 
his own conceptions of future virtue and happiness, 
“ these things are indeed worth giving one’s life for ! ” 
“Perhaps,” said Elizabeth, slowly. 

“Ko, no, Mrs. Dorimer,” he answered, quickly ; “it 
is no doubtful perhaps, it is a very distinct and absolute 
certainty. Remember,” he added, in a slightly profes- 
sional tone, “ a time must come to each one of us, when 
we shall hardly be careful to ask ourselves whether our 
past years have been easy and agreeable : but rather 
whether they have been as useful and admirable as it 
was possible for us to make them. The remembrance 
of solid work, of work accomplished and completed, 
will form our only lasting satisfaction in looking back.” 

There was something compelling in the strength of 
Mr. Deeper’s personal conviction. It commanded Eliza- 
beth’s respect, and yet she had a lingering feeling that 


124 


MRS. LORIMER. 


his ideal shut out much that is lovely, and precious, and 
worthy to he made room for in this world. Mr. Leep- 
er’s ideal seemed to her rather bare and commonplace, 
and wanting in poetry. There is nothing very romantic 
in well-ventilated drains, or in a substitution of lemon- 
ade for wine at dinner, I am afraid — and to certain 
natures even the thought of Church Congresses is de- 
void of any very keen dramatic interest. Mr. Leeper’s 
ideal seemed to her of a painfully urgent, practical^ 
business-like description. It suggested the notion of 
getting up so very early in the morning, and sitting 
down to dinner in walking-boots to save time, and liv- 
ing in a condition of severe indifference to the graceful 
and leisurely side of things. Yet it was noble. 

Elizabeth felt puzzled. She turned away and let 
her eyes wander over the quiet sunny landscape to the 
blue distance of the horizon. Her face was serious — 
almost sad in its expression. 

Mr. Leeper sat looking at her. He was aware that 
he had made an impression. And yet he found it very 
difficult to keep his mind steady to the Cause, just in 
this critical moment of possible success. He wished to 
be hard and ascetic ; but alas ! the pathetic beauty of 
this woman was more powerful than he had calculated 
for. Mr. Leeper would have rather liked to scourge 
himself, yet he could not help gazing still at Elizabeth. 

At last she turned to him again, and said : 

“ But I have known people work, and strive, and 
wear themselves out for these things, and yet, in the 
end, the result of all their labor seemed remarkably 
small, a mere drop in the ocean. They sacrificed them- 
selves, and really it seemed, on the whole, to make no 
great difference.” 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 125 

“ Ah,” answered Mr. Leeper, “ we must give the 
progressive movement time. In time everybody must 
come round to our point of view.” 

He drew himself up and summoned all his enthusi- 
asm to his rescue. 

‘‘ In time,” he said, “ every one must acknowledge 
the advantage of strongly restrictive measures regard- 
ing the liquor-traffic ; of a more thorough system of 
Church organization ; and of greater unity of purpose 
among the clergy themselves, to be arrived at by fre- 
quent meetings — diocesan synods, and so on. The 
country is not sufficiently educated in these ways yet ; 
and there has been a lamentable degree of supineness 
among the clergy themselves till the last few years. 
But a better state of things is beginning. There is a 
growing spirit of devotion and earnestness among us, 
and I sincerely believe that the common sense of the 
majority of the lay- world is on our side. I have no fear 
as to the ultimate success of our cause if we can get 
workers enough. The harvest is ripe, the call now is 
for the laborers.” 

Mr. Leeper paused a moment. Then he leaned for- 
ward toward his fair companion, and tried to throw a 
tone of supplication and delicate appeal into his voice 
and manner. Unfortunately, Mr. Leeper was always 
observed to be most successful in denunciation ; his 
appeals were liable to appear slightly forced, and seldom 
produced a very satisfactory effect upon his auditors. 

“We need the help of women, as well as of men, 
Mrs. Lorimer,” he said. “In her most glorious and 
fruitful seasons, the Church has always claimed the 
labor of her daughters, as well as that of her sons. In 
her great harvest-field there is room — nay, there is a 


12G 


MRS. LORIMER. 


distinct and absolute need for the feminine as well as 
the masculine virtues. She can use the humility, the 
devotion, and that fondness for detail which is common 
to your sex, as well as the strenuous thought and per- 
sistent vigor which is the prerogative of ours. The 
priest is the authorized and recognized leader : but he 
must be supported, his work must be supplemented. In 
every diocese, and, on a smaller scale, in every parish, 
we want to establish a thoroughly adequate and well- 
adjusted organization, in which man and woman, young 
and mature ” — Mr. Leeper paused a moment, and then 
went on with a little rush — ‘‘married and single, will 
each and all find their proper place and proper sphere of 
usefulness. — Does not this appeal to your mind, Mrs. Lor- 
imer ? Do you not see what a grand opening there is here 
for all kinds of talents — while each individual worker is 
upheld by the sympathy and concurrence of the whole 
body ? Singly we are powerless, united we may success- 
fully struggle with and subdue all the evils of our day.’’ 

Elizabeth sat still gazing into the distance, while 
the summer wind fanned her cheek, and the rich resin- 
ous odor of the cedars filled the warm air. Great ideas 
were very attractive to her. For a moment her own 
desires and disappointments seemed very small and un-- 
important. Would it not be better, she wondered, to 
give up all idea of personal happiness, and throw her- 
self into this movement for the good of the Church and 
of the people ? 

The proverb says that one man’s meat is another 
man’s poison. It is a slightly confusing fact. Eliza- 
beth had been somewhat carried away by Mr. Leeper’s 
address, when suddenly it struck her how very lightly 
her uncle would treat these schemes of Church govern- 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD WHITE. 1^7 

ment ; how he would probably call Mr. Keeper a wind- 
hag, and his fine fancies so much impracticable and 
pernicious rubbish. The thought of Mr. Mainwaring’s 
cheerful contempt caused Elizabeth a certain revulsion 
of feeling. She turned to Mr. Keeper — who, excited 
and warm with his own eloquence, was sitting bolt up- 
right, with an expression on his face in which triumph 
struggled with anxiety. 

“But think now of Claybrooke,” she said. “My 
uncle, you know, cares very little for all these views. 
He is quite willing that things should go on in their old 
quiet fashion. I don’t suppose anything would induce 
him to go to a Church Congress, or preach a crusade 
against poor old Davenport, who keeps the Red Horse, 
or to lead the very active life you have suggested. Yet 
his parish is orderly and well conducted, the people 
come to church regularly, and, as far as I can make out, 
we haven’t half the squabbles and disagreements there 
that there seem to be in all the parishes round about* 
How do you account for that ? ” 

Mr. Keeper had an unpleasant sensation — a little as 
though he had been going down-stairs, and had mis- 
taken two steps for one. This speech brought him up 
with a nasty jar. He did not quite see how to answer 
it, with an accurate regard both for truth and for Mrs. 
Korimer’s feelings. It was a regular woman’s argument, 
he thought, impatiently — personal affection, as usual, 
preventing a clear understanding of the matter in hand. 
He had just been making such a lot of room for the femi- 
nine virtues, and now the chief of them, unreasoning de- 
votion, was getting sadly in his way. It was very try- 
ing to be put in such a situation. After a pause he said, 
rather shortly : 


128 


MES. LOEIMEK. 


Claybrooke is an exceptional case. The feudal 
feeling there is very strong still. I, personally, am too 
sincere a Liberal to admire feudal feeling ; I think it 
begets servility and want of true manliness in the poor : 
but I can not say that it may not sometimes be used for 
good ends. At Claybrooke this may be the case.” 

He felt a little unhappy when he had spoken ; a little 
afraid that he was softening down the hard edges of 
truth for the sake of a pretty woman; a little afraid 
that he had been called upon to make a choice between 
Mrs. Lorimer and a clear conscience, and that he had 
chosen the former ; a little afraid that he was not quite 
such a whole-hearted, straightforward man as when he 
had stood in the cottage doorway, an hour before, scold- 
ing the woman for not sending her children to school. 
It is never pleasant to sink in one’s own estimation. To 
a man of Mr. Leeper’s order of mind, whose whole life’s 
work is grounded upon a strong belief in his own infal- 
libility, it is simply intolerable. He felt compelled to 
set his conscience at rest again. He turned to Elizabeth 
and spoke eagerly, desiring earnestly to win her to his 
opinions, and thereby justify, in the end, his own mo- 
mentary deflection from the strict path of virtue. 

wish,” — ^he said, ‘‘I do wish most truly, Mrs. 
Lorimer, that I could persuade you to take a living in- 
terest in these matters.” 

Elizabeth felt almost annoyed by the iosistence with 
which he spoke. Just then a servant came across from 
the house to announce that tea was ready indoors. Eliza- 
beth rose, and Mr. Leeper, before turning to follow the 
messenger, spoke again. 

‘‘I wish it very much,” he said. “Mrs. Lorimer, 
will you let me lend you some books and pamphlets 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 129 

wLicli will put before you — much more clearly and for- 
cibly than I can — the importance of these questions ? ” 
I’m afraid I shouldn’t have time to read them now,” 
she answered, wishing that he would not make the mat- 
ter such a personal one. 

“ Then later, in the autumn,” he insisted, “ I will 
bring them over to Claybrooke. There is always plenty 
of time for reading during the long evenings.” 

“ I sha’n’t be here then,” said Elizabeth. 

They were walking across the lawn to the house. 
Mr. Keeper stopped short and asked quite sharply, with 
a decided touch of his usual irritability : 

Why, where are you going ? ” 

“ To London,” she answered ; and added slowly, 
“I don’t quite know when I shall come back.” 

She remembered Mr. Mainwaring’s words — she would 
only come back when she had seen everything and grown 
tired of everything. It seemed to Elizabeth, standing 
opposite to Mr. Keeper, with his vexed and anxious face, 
in the quiet sunny light of the summer afternoon, that 
it might be a very long time before that came to pass. 

Mr. Keeper drank Mrs. Adnitt’s excellent tea in si- 
lence, and devoured her perfect bread and butter with- 
out a word. He was intensely annoyed. All his plans 
seemed to be broken off short. His millennium had 
b^en coming on so nicely, and now everything seemed 
over. Mrs. Korimer was going away, and — Mr. Keeper 
mentally had recourse to the scourge again — ^he did not 
quite like to think how very much he minded her going. 


CHAPTER X. 

“ Mais ou sont les neiges d’antan? ” 

Theee is always something not only painful but 
bewildering in going back, after a lapse of time, to a 
house' one has known very intimately under other cir- 
cumstances. It is haunted by dead and absent faces. 
And it is haunted, too, by an importunate past-self, 
which dogs one’s footsteps, for ever crying reproach- 
fully, “ Why are you different ? why are you no longer 
what you were ? Which is the true and eternal, which 
is the false and passing self ? ” The past and the pres- 
ent struggle together, and it is difficult to reconcile 
them. One has a necessity upon one to justify the 
present to that importunate past ; and yet, a wild yearn- 
ing at times to take the latter to one’s heart again, and 
bid the commonplace present begone. To a sensitive 
and imaginative nature this struggle becomes absolutely 
terrible. 

The first few days that Elizabeth spent in London 
were very sad and weary and confusing. The coldness 
of Mrs. Mainwaring’s farewell to her had been painful ; 
but, perhaps, the kindness of the Rector’s farewell had 
been even more so. Claybrooke, after all, was a very 
peaceful harbor of refuge. Xow she felt that she was 
faring forth on to the great ocean of life, to sink or 


A' SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 131 


swim as she might, with only her own courage and wits 
and persistence to guide her. She had set sail — like 
many another young soul — to search for an unknown 
good, and the first few days of the voyage were any- 
thing but encouraging. Elizabeth felt that if she had 
realized clearly beforehand how profoundly the return 
to this house would have affected her, she should cer- 
tainly have staid quietly at the Rectory, swallowed all 
her aunt’s social nostrums, and submitted without a 
murmur to any amount of Midlandshire monotony. She 
was too prone, at all times, to take a mental review of 
her situation ; to ask herself what she had accomplished 
so far, and what she intended to accomplish in the- com- 
ing time ? In the loneliness and silence of this familiar 
house, she became a perfect prey to melancholy medi- 
tations. Her thoughts centered upon herself and her 
present position, till she was overcome with morbid self- 
pity. 

Outwardly everything was just as she had left it 
little more than a year before, when, in hurry and anx- 
iety, she had packed away the things she valued most, 
and left the rooms swept and garnished for the incom- 
ing tenant. It was all just the same, only there were 
the traces of a year’s wear and tear upon it, a year’s 
freshness gone out of it. Elizabeth felt that she and 
her furniture had suffered the same fate. But, alas ! 
how much more tender human flesh and blood can suf- 
fer, how much more of its youth and freshness it can 
lose in a year’s time than these inanimate things can ! 
There is something painful, and yet almost absurd, in 
comparing notes with one’s own chairs and tables ; and 
in observing how far more indifferent they are to the 
“ ravages of time ” than one is one’s self. A meditation 


132 


MRS. LORIMER. 


of this kind does not tend to an increase of personal 
vanity. 

London was very empty still, and the Frank Lori- 
mers were still abroad, so that there was no hope of any 
acquaintance looking in upon Elizabeth whose advent 
might relieve the tedium of her first week or two at 
home. Mrs. Frank — who had a remarkable power of 
deriving interest and amusement from other people’s af- 
fairs — felt immensely sorry at not being on the spot to 
superintend her sister-in-law’s settling in London. She 
was worried with the notion that Elizabeth would spend 
more money than was necessary, and longed to regulate 
all her domestic concerns. Mrs. Frank Lorimer loved 
a bargain — to do things in the very best way at the very 
smallest cost, seemed to her a perfect combination of 
duty and pleasure. She always wanted her money’s 
worth. All her investments had been good so far. She 
was thoroughly satisfied with her husband, her children, 
her house, her servants, her friends, and perhaps — ^her- 
self. She was a little afraid that Elizabeth was not alto- 
gether acute regarding investments. She had a lurking 
idea that people who were acute regarding investments 
were rarely widows at one-and-twenty, unless they had 
married for money, and then, of course, the case was 
materially altered. Mrs. Frank wished very much that 
on this occasion she could have been at hand to overlook 
Elizabeth’s affairs with advice, warning, and encourage- 
ment. However, since that was impossible, she wrote a 
much emphasized letter offering her sister-in-law all the 
help which the servants she had left at home could 
give ; and dwelling, at some length, on her own and 
her husband’s satisfaction at the thought that Eliza- 
beth had successfully effected her escape from Clay- 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 133 

brooLe, and was really going to be their near neighbor 
in town. 

On the third morning after her arrival poor Eliza- 
beth caine down - stairs to breakfast feeling extremely 
wretched. She had found it impossible to sleep much. 
The house seemed intolerably hot and stuffy after the 
large rooms and passages of the old Rectory. She was 
depressed by a sense of loneliness. She had wished to 
be independent, and her independence was already ter- 
ribly dreary. She asked herself what she meant to do 
— was day after day to pass in this melancholy, aimless 
way ? Was she going to remain in this state of torpor 
till the Frank Lorimers came back, and depend entirely 
on them for all future interest and employment ? Eliza- 
beth, as she sat in the bare dining-room, with the un- 
tasted breakfast on the table before her, actually failed 
so in courage that she felt disposed to own herself beaten, 
and go back to Claybrooke again. But her pride re- 
volted against the idea. She put it from her angrily. 

Roused from her lethargy by her own anger, seeing 
how desperate her situation must be if she had even for 
a moment contemplated such a step, she summoned all 
her energy, and determined to find some simple occupa- 
tion which should so engage her attention as not to leave 
her time for any more brooding. She must be busy all 
day, and not allow herself a moment for thought, if she 
meant to avoid the humiliation, and resist the tempta- 
tion, of a sudden return to the Rectory. She could, at 
least, rearrange this house which looked so sad and 
empty. Perhaps when she had filled the rooms with 
china and books, and knick-knacks, and all those innumer- 
able odds and ends which are to a house just what ribbons, 
and frills, and laces, are to a woman’s gown— -unneces- 


134 : 


MES. LOEIMER. 


sary in fact, and yet all-important for effect — perhaps 
when she had all these little things about her, the rooms 
would seem less silent and ghostly, and she would be 
better able to shake off the load of loneliness and sor- 
row which oppressed her. 

Strengthened with this thought, Elizabeth, leaving 
her hardly-tasted breakfast, called Martha and went 
up-stairs to her own room to examine the contents of 
some cupboards, in which she had put away her wed- 
ding-presents and other little household gods. Martha, 
having dusted china at Claybrooke herself, and scolded 
under-housemaids for not dusting it properly, for many 
years, and having, moreover, a disposition, like many 
, good servants, to respect a mistress in proportion to the 
quantity and value of her goods, went, nothing loath, to 
. assist at the unearthing of these stores of reputed treas- 
; ures. 

Elizabeth, when she opened the first cupboard, could 
not help feeling a childish sense of pleasure. She took 
the pretty things from their hiding-place — standing on 
a chair so as to get at the top shelves — and handed them 
down to Martha, who, with various commendatory ob- 
servations, wiped them and put them ready to carry 
down-stairs. The windows of the bedroom were open, 
and the room was full of sunny light. 

But Elizabeth had passed a sleepless night, and had 
hardly eaten anything that morning. Suddenly she felt 
herself turn sick and faint. The sight of all these fool- 
ish little bits of china, and wedding-gifts, became in- 
tolerable to her. They reminded her too strongly and 
vividly of the past. Each thing had its history — trivial 
and unimportant, and yet telling, with terrible clearness, 
of hours and days dead for ever, of change and loss, of 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 135 

unfulfilled hopes, and of past tenderness — that might 
have been little regarded at the moment — and could 
never, never he repaid now. Elizabeth steadied herself 
with one hand on the shelf of the cupboard ; but a tiny- 
delicate cup she was holding in the other slipped from 
her grasp and fell shattered upon the fioor. 

' ‘‘ Oh ! dear ma’am, it’s broken ! ” cried the worthy 
Martha, in a lamentable voice. 

Elizabeth stepped down from the chair, and leaning 
her two hands for support on the back of it, said : 

“ I can’t go on, Martha. It’s dreadful ! ” 

‘‘ It is a sad pity you dropped it, ma’am,” answered 
Martha. “It’s broke past mending now. It’s lucky 
it’s not one of the best, though ; these blue ones, like 
the set Mrs. Mainwaring is so precious of, in the glass 
cupboard on the landing at home — it would have been 
a real pity if you had broke one of them — ” 

“ Oh, it isn’t that,” said Elizabeth, hardly knowing 
whether to laugh or to cry at the contrast between her 
own sensations and Martha’s conception of them. “I 
don’t care about breaking the cup ; it’s the whole thing. 
It is dreadful being here. I wonder why I ever came.”- 
“It is strange at first,” answered Martha, with a 
slight glimmering of the situation. “ But it will seem 
more natural after a bit, ma’am. — ^Yes, it’s broke past 
mending,” she added to herself, as she stooped down to 
collect the scattered fragments of the poor little china 
cup. 

Elizabeth stood still, leaning her hands on the back 
of the chair, her eyes fixed on the open window, and a 
far-away look on her face. She could see the gray 
houses on the other side of the street — which were 
mostly shut up still, with closed blinds and shutters — 


136 


MRS. LORIMER. 


they looked singularly dull and unresponsive in tke 
glare of tlie dusty morning sunshine. An organ was 
droning the airs from the last comic opera a little way 
off. Street cries, in tones once fresh but now strained 
and hoarse, rose now and again in pathetic cadence 
from the street below ; while the confused muffled roar 
of the great thoroughfare leading down to Vauxhall 
Bridge formed a dull heavy bass to the nearer sounds. 
Elizabeth stood involuntarily listening. Everything 
seemed to her very sad, very trivial, very indifferent, 
very terrible at that moment. Life was far too vast 
and multitudinous and dark for her to try to compre- 
hend it all. She could not understand why she was 
left alone like this with no one to train and help and 
guide her. The strain of the last few days was telling 
upon her heavily. She seemed to suffer a moral and 
spiritual collapse, and to lose her hold upon all realities. 
Past, present, and future, were alike an enigma to her. 

Martha, rising from her stooping posture with a 
slightly heated face, after collecting the fragments of 
the broken cup, gazed at her in alarm. 

Dear, dear, how white and ill you do look, ma’am ! ” 
she said, hastily. “Shall I fetch you some wine or 
something ? — ^how I wish Mrs. Smart was here to see to 
you ! I never was a very good hand at nursing.” 

“ Oh ! I shall be all right in a minute,” answered 
Elizabeth, sitting down wearily. “But I can’t go on 
unpacking the china. You must do it yourself, please, 
Martha. I’m so tired. I’ll go down-stairs and be 
quiet.” 

She got up after a few minutes, and went down into 
the bare drawing-room ; but it was impossible in her 
present frame of mind for Elizabeth to be quiet. Being 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 137 


quiet, meant sinking back into the state of morbid mel- 
ancholy from which she had tried so hard to rouse her- 
self at breakfast- time. Being quiet, meant crying till 
she was utterly tired out, and then in despair deciding 
to own herself beaten, and going back to Claybrooke. 
Things had come to a crisis. Elizabeth felt she must 
make up her mind once and for all. 

The atmosphere of the room seemed to stifle her ; 
she went hastily and threw both the sash-windows on 
to the balcony up as high as they would go, letting the 
fresh air, and all the confused stir and murmur of the 
street, in with a rush. Then she turned and walked up 
and down the two rooms, trying hard to master her 
sense of loneliness and indecision, and to regain her 
determination and self-confidence. 

There was a little charcoal sketch of Robert Lorimer 
hanging in the back drawing-room. Just a slight 
sketch, but half finished ; yet, like so many mere 
sketches, giving a much more living suggestion of the 
original than a more finished portrait. It had been 
done by one of Frank Lorimer’s innumerable artist 
friends a few months before his brother’s marriage. In 
the hurry of her departure a year before Elizabeth had 
left it behind hanging on the wall ; and it was one of 
the first things that had greeted her when she returned 
to her own house. She had hardly dared to look at it, 
hardly dared to go into the room with it during the last 
three days. She fancied there would be something 
almost reproachful in the pictured face. 

INow in her urgent walk Elizabeth stopped suddenly 
opposite to the sketch. She had arrived at a decision. 
She would neither relent nor give way any more ; she 
would cast her sorrow behind her, and throw herself 


138 


MRS. LORIMER. 


entirely upon tlie future. Elizabeth hardly knew how 
much she meant by this decision : but she had a vague 
conviction — notwithstanding the difficulties about Rob- 
ert’s relations — that her duty to her aunt and uncle and 
her duty to her husband were, in some strange way, 
linked together ; that in renouncing Claybrooke finally, 
she also repudiated the tenderness which she owed to 
Robert Lorimer’s memory. She was going to try to 
live a new life. She felt that she could not have her 
husband a silent witness of that attempt. 

Elizabeth moved forward and took the sketch down 
from its place on the w^all ; and while she looked ear- 
nestly at it hot tears gathered in her eyes, blurring the 
outline, and making it hazy and indistinct. 

In a sudden paroxysm of feeling — half penitent and 
half defiant — she raised the picture to her lips and 
kissed it passionately over and over again, crying : 

“ Oh, my darling ! my darling ! why did you die ? 
why did you leave me alone ? — you who loved me — ” 
She paused, and then added quietly — ‘‘Ah, indeed, 
why ? ” 

Still the organ ran through the light airs from the 
opera, and the street cries sounded plaintive in the sum- 
mer air, and the murmur of the busy thoroughfare 
came hoarse from the distance in through the widely 
open windows. 

Elizabeth kissed the picture once more, very gently 
and reverently, as we kiss the dead when we bid them 
good-by for ever ; then kneeling down before her writ- 
ing-table, she unlocked a little drawer, and laid it away, 
face downward, in the narrow place. . Rising, she 
locked the drawer again. 

“ That is done,” she said, softly. 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. I39 

'She turned and walked thoughtfully to the ppen 
window, and stood for some minutes in the sunshine 
. and fresh air. 

There was something soothing and comforting to 
hei', after her hurst of lonely passion, in the life of the 
dusty street. People moved by, on their business or 
pleasure, looking satisfied and commonplace. Life did 
not seem to be a mystery and death an enigma to them. 
They seemed to take it all for granted, without being 
troubled by any strange misgivings regarding them- 
selves or anything else. Elizabeth, looking at them, 
felt herself growing quiet, growing conditioned again, 
Right or wrong, she felt strengthened and encouraged. 
She told herself she had done well to venture forth 
once more. The coming years might hold sweet com- 
pensation for her past sorrow. She would have cour- 
age. Just now, in the prime of her youthful beauty 
and enthusiasm, Elizabeth demanded to live largely 
rather than ideally. Self-renunciation seemed to her 
less beautiful than self-development ; and she turned, 
once more, toward the future with an almost buoyant 
motion of hope. 

When she moved away from the window, there was 
a new, very resolute, look on her handsome face. 

She went out on to the stairs and called Martha ; 
and when that worthy woman appeared in a lively state 
of agitation — foreseeing faintings and disaster — Eliza- 
beth said to her in a clear voice, with no traces of her 
late weakness : 

‘‘ Bring down all that china, Martha, please, and I’ll 
arrange it ; and tell one of the maids to have a hansom 
here at half-past two. I shall want you to go out with 
me.” 


140 


MRS. LORIMER. 


Then after a pause she added : 

“ I don’t like the house as it is. I want to go to a 
decorator’s this afternoon and make arrangements about 
its being done up. Thanks,” in answer to some inqui- 
ries concerning her health, “ I feel perfectly well, now.” 

During the remainder of September and the first 
weeks of October, the house was given over to paint- 
ers and paperers, notwithstanding the groans of the 
servants. Elizabeth wanted something to do, so she 
amused herself by gratifying every passing fancy in 
the matter of spindle-legged tables and chairs, rich, 
heavy curtains, soft-colored Indian carpets, inordinate 
mantel-shelf arrangements, and those strange combina- 
tions of color which turn modern dwelling-houses into 
dark abodes full of mysterious suggestions of almost 
oppressive luxury. Fortunately, Elizabeth had a fairly 
good balance at her banker’s, for these transformations 
are pretty costly affairs ; but, even so, it did occur to 
her to wonder, once or twice, if she was not spending a 
good deal of money. 

When the work-people at last departed, and Eliza- 
beth surveyed her house, she felt a little like a child 
with a new box of toys. It really was all wonderfully 
harmonious and charming. But it is dull to play with 
a new box of toys all alone, and she still felt lonely 
enough at times and unhappy ; and still the picture of 
Robert Lorimer lay, face downward, in the writing- 
table drawer. 


CHAPTER XL 


h “ . . . En effet, ce qu’il y a de plus difficile ^ apprendre, c’est le genre 
de politesse qui n’est ni cer^monieux ni fainilier.” 

‘‘ My dear Elizabeth, it is perfectly delightful to see 
you again, and have you settled so near us,” exclaimed 
Mrs. Frank Lorimer, coming, with a pleasant rustle of 
many-flounced garments, into Elizabeth’s drawing-room 
one foggy afternoon toward the end of October. 

Mrs. Frank took the stage admirably ; her entrances 
and exits left nothing to be desired. She always looked 
equally neat and fresh ; always equally mistress of her- 
self and of the situation. Wherever she was she ap- 
peared to become, quite naturally, the center of the sys- 
tem of things ; everything revolved round her. She 
was more highly finished, both in looks and manner, 
than is usual with our countrywomen — who too often 
have a tendency toward uncertainty of outline. I sup- 
pose it may be reckoned as one of the many unfortunate 
results of our misty, dingy, English climate, that Eng- 
lishwomen are apt to be slightly indistinct. They fre- 
quently suggest the notion of persons moving about in 
the twilight, who are nervous lest they should be be- 
trayed into compromising mistakes by the semi-darkness 
around them. There is something agreeable, if a little 
startling, in meeting with a woman like Mrs. Frank 


142 


MRS. LORIMER. 


Lorimer, in whose mind the brightest daylight always 
reigns, and who moves through life with admirable self- 
confidence, consequent on the clearness of her mental 
atmosphere. 

She was a dainty little person, with a creamy-white 
complexion, large blue eyes — rather too light in color, 
perhaps — and fair brown hair, arranged low on her fore- 
head in soft waves. Her features were small and neat. 
Without having any claims to remarkable beauty, she 
was exceedingly pleasant to look at. There were no 
mysteries, surprises, or sudden illuminations about her ; 
having seen her once, you had seen her always ; she 
did not enchant you unexpectedly ; on the other hand, 
she never disappointed you,but always produced the same 
effect of comfortable security and refined self satisfaction. 

On the whole, women liked Mrs. Frank Lorimer 
more than men did. They found her so capable and so 
supporting. A few of her acquaintances certainly ac- 
cused her of taking up a little too much room and hav- 
ing too great a disposition to insert her pretty fingers 
into every pie ; but then, who shall escape calumny 
altogether ? 

Mrs. Frank Lorimer was not only truly glad to see 
Elizabeth again, but she had a little bit of diplomacy 
t)n hand, and nothing raised her spirits and gave such 
a delicate zest to her intercourse with her fellow-creat- 
ures as the consciousness that it was necessary for her 
to manage them, and do her best, gently and unobtru- 
sively, to get her own way with them. 

That morning at breakfast Frank Lorimer, to whose 
kindly and easy-going nature anything in the shape of 
a scene was utterly distasteful, had said to her, from 
behind his morning paper ; , 


A SKETCPI m BLACK AND 'WHITE. 


143 


Fanny, you’ll ask Elizabeth to dine here to-morrow 
night.” 

“ Yes,” she had answered somewhat abstractedly. 
She was deeply engaged in ministering to the wants of 
her eldest child, a slim, curly-headed little girl of about 
three, who sat perched upon a high chair at the break- 
fast-table ; and whose behavior, as soon as her hunger 
was satisfied, had become decidedly more cheerful than 
decorous. 

I think I’ll ask Clement Bartlett or Wharton to 
dinner too,” continued Frank, emerging from behind 
his paper again. 

“ Why ? — My darling child, do remember to hold 
your spoon with your right hand. — The first time she 
comes, Frank, I should really think Elizabeth would 
prefer to be alone with us.” 

Frank Lorimer was feeling rather dismal and rather 
irritable. The memories of a very bad passage across 
the Channel, the day before, still haunted him. He 
was sensible that his play-time was over for this year, 
and that nine months of hard work stretched them- 
selves out univitingly before him. He was very fond 
of Elizabeth, he admired her greatly : but he shrank 
from the idea of a pathetic interview with her, and de- 
sired to erect a barricade of indifferent friends between 
himself and any unnecessary displays of emotion on her 
part. 

“ Well, you see, really, Fanny,” he answered in 
slightly a depressed and grumbling tone, “ the meeting 
must be rather painful anyway. I haven’t seen Eliza- 
beth since February, and of course she’ll feel coming 
here again. Y ou can’t be sure of Elizabeth, you know ; 
and I hate to see a woman upset, it!s so very unpleasant. 


144 


MRS. LORIMER. 


I really think the meeting would go off better if some- 
body else was here too.” 

“ ISTini, darling, a little more milk ? Don’t spill it — 
there. Yes, perhaps it would be best,” said Mrs. Frank, 
meditatively. ‘‘Only, Frank, if we must have some- 
body, pray ask Mr. Wharton. Clement Bartlett was 
never very intelligent, and he is too utterly tiresome 
now that he has gone on to the stage. He talks the 
most unlimited shop. Young gentlemen always are a 
bore when they like their professions ; they treat one 
to so much unnecessary information about them. — Oh ! 
my good child,” she cried, suddenly, “ what an awful 
mess ! ” 

During the time that her mother had been occupied 
in commenting on poor Mr. Bartlett’s shortcomings, 
Nini had indulged in a little experiment in landscape- 
gardening, by pouring half the contents of her mug on 
to the table-cloth. A shallow, milky river, after mean- 
dering among the plates and forks and spoons, was now 
pouring cheerfully, in a miniature cascade, off the edge 
of the table and on to the little girl’s white-pinafored 
lap. 

“ Quick, a napkin, Frank ! ” cried his wife ; “ her 
frock will be utterly ruined.” 

While Frank assisted to dam up the river, and mop 
Nini’s wet pinafore, he continued his little grumble. 

“ I’m sure Bartlett’s a charming fellow, Fanny. You 
never have appreciated him. Women are so horribly 
prejudiced.” 

“ There, that’ll do, Frank, you’re doing more harm 
than good now. I always dislike anybody I’m always 
being told to admire. It is only natural. — Now, Nini, 
be careful and don’t make any more messes. — Very 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 145 


well, then, I’ll ask Elizabeth to come ; and Mr. Wharton 
is to come too. Shall I tell her that? Really, I’m 
afraid,” she said, looking across at her husband, it 
will seem rather odd. What shall I say ? ” 

But Frank Lorimer, having gained his point, became 
quite ready to dismiss all further consideration of the 
matter in a light and airy manner. 

“ Oh, anything you like,” he said. You’re far 
more ingenious than I am. Now, I must go. — Good-by, 
you dirty little dear,” he added, as he stooped down 
and kissed the little maiden in the high chair. 

It was in consequence of this conversation that Mrs. 
Frank Lorimer arrived at Elizabeth’s house, that after- 
noon, with a sense that she had a diplomatic mission to 
accomplish. She had quite settled in her own mind 
that, for everybody’s comfort, there had better be as 
little allusion to the past as possible. She strongly ob- 
jected herself to sorrow, misfortune, or death, and did 
her best to ignore their existence. So she decided to 
meet her sister-in-law in a cheerful and easy spirit. 

It is perfectly charming to see you again, and have 
you really settled near us,” she said, as she kissed Eliza- 
beth on both cheeks, holding her hands, and smiling at 
her in a composed and brilliant way. 

Now, my dear, I’ve only come in for five minutes. 
Yes, thanks, I will sit down here by the fire and warm 
my feet ; I am frightfully cold. There, that’s nice. — 
You dear creature,” she continued, smiling at Elizabeth 
again, as soon as she had established herself comforta- 
bly, “you can’t think how glad I am that you have 
come. I really am thankful you made up your mind to 
leave Claybrooke. You must have been nearly bored to 
death. How anybody ever manages to live in the coun- 
7 


146 


MES. LOEIMEE. 


try all the year round I, for my part, simply can’t 
imagine. — Tea? — Yes, please, and plenty of sugar. 
Thanks,dear. — What lovely hands you have, Elizabeth ! ” 

Elizabeth smiled too as she gave Mrs. Frank her 
cup of tea. 

The two women were sitting in front of the fire, 
with a low tea-table between them — Mrs. Frank warm- 
ing her feet, incased in a remarkably neat pair of 
French boots, on the stone fender. 

Elizabeth was inclined to accuse her sister-in-law of 
being rather unsympathetic ; at the same time she 
could not help being amused at her volubility. She 
had been almost entirely alone for the last six weeks, 
and felt somewhat out of the habit of talking herself. 
Conversation, too, in the neighborhood of Claybrooke 
is wont to move forward with singular deliberation — a 
sluggish, not a rapid stream, flowing slowly round 
large islands of silence, which seem to throw dense 
heavy shadows across its lazy waters. Mrs. Frank 
Lorimer’s great determination of words to the mouth 
struck Elizabeth as really surprising, for the Claybrooke 
influences were strongly upon her still. 

“We only got home last night,” continued Mrs. 
Frank, sipping her tea complacently, “ after such an in- 
describably detestable passage. Nurses, babies, every- 
body, even Frank himself reduced to a state of limp 
misery, which— well, my dear. I’ll leave it to your 
imagination. However, here we are, and we’ve had a 
lovely summer. And actually I left the children for a 
whole week, and went off to Paris alone with Frank. 
It was delightful. I thought I should have been mis- 
erable at being away from the children, you know. 
I ought certainly to have been entirely miserable ; but, 


A SKETCH 11^ BLACK AND WHITE. 147 


in point of fact, I wasn’t. The maternal instinct went 
, to sleep for a week, which was a mercy. Frank wanted' 
to take me straight off to pictures and churches and all 
manner of things ; but I retired to shop for some time 
first. I simply can’t walk about Paris in English 
clothes. There’s no real pleasure in life if you know 
you’ve too many or too few buttons on the back of 
your jacket. I’m dreadfully weak-minded, I want a 
lot of material support. If my clothes are not all right 
my mind won’t work a bit. Existence becomes a night- 
mare. — Please, may I have some more bread and but- 
ter ? Thanks. — But, my dear Elizabeth,” she said sud- 
denly, “ how perfectly lovely you’ve made this house I 
It’s absolutely charming. I am consumed with envy. I 
shall feel broken-hearted when I see my own drawing- 
room again to-night — but, you know, I never seem to 
have any money to go in for this sort of thing.” 

Elizabeth could not help looking rather expressively 
at her sister-in-law’s gown. 

‘‘ Yes, I know,” said Mrs. Frank ; “ but it really 
wasn’t expensive. I always bargain. 'Now just look,” 
she added, standing up and turning her back on Eliza- 
beth, “ doesn’t it fit divinely in the waist ? And look 
at the hang of the skirt. I’m French,” she said, turn- 
ing round again suddenly, ‘‘from my bonnet to my 
boots ; consequently I am utterly happy, and defy the 
universe. Ah, you dear, sweet, sober Elizabeth,” she 
went on, laughing and catching hold of Elizabeth’s 
hand — extended to save the tea-cup, which during these 
little gymnastics of Mrs. Frank’s had been in imminent 
danger of spilling its contents all over the carpet and 
her gown — “ you think me horribly trivial, don’t you ? 
Don’t I bore you dreadfully ? ” 


148 


MRS. LORIMER. 


“ [N'o ; on tlie contrary,” answered Elizabeth, smil- 
ing, “I think you very clever ; and you entertain me 
immensely.” 

“Ah, I’m thankful for that,” said Mrs. Frank, sub- 
siding into her chair again. “ You must have been 
quite enough bored in the country without being bored 
here as well. Now do tell me,” she added, bending for- 
ward and looking rather hard at Elizabeth with her 
large, innocent, blue eyes, “weren’t the Mainwarings 
tremendously annoyed at your coming away ? ” 

“ My aunt objected to it,” answered Elizabeth, draw- 
ing herself up. 

She did not quite like Fanny Lorimer’s tone ; and 
she felt that it would be impossible to make her com- 
prehend the mixed feelings with which she regarded 
her relations at Claybrooke. Fanny Lorimer belonged 
to a different world : Elizabeth knew that she could not 
understand the Mainwarings. It seemed to be her fate, 
poor Elizabeth thought, always to defend absent rela- 
tions from the sharp criticism of present ones. 

“ I fancy she does not regard us with at all favorable 
eyes, does she ? ” said Mrs. Frank, looking brightly in 
Elizabeth’s face. 

“ She doesn’t know you, Fanny ; and she has 
strong — ” 

Elizabeth paused. 

“Prejudices,” said her sister-in-law. “Oh yes, I 
understand perfectly. She detests us, and was very 
angry at your coming, and wanted you to drop us alto- 
gether ; and you defied her in an heroic way — charming, 
Elizabeth ! And your uncle, you know, I want to know 
about him ? Frank was immensely impressed with him, 
and gave me quite an excited account of his looks, and 


A SKETCH IN’ BLACK AND WHITE. 149 

manner, and so on. Bat I don’t by any means fancy 
Mr. Mainwaring returned all the admiration Frank kind- 
ly bestowed on him. I think I made that out.” 

‘‘ I am very fond of my uncle,” said Elizabeth, rather 
stiffly. ‘‘ Perhaps I care for him more than for any one 
else.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Mrs. Frank, with a little comprehensive 
nod. 

She saw that she had touched on dangerous ground ; 
but she was noi easily abashed. 

‘‘Well, now, you know, I came not only to welcome 
you, you dear creature, and to tell you how delighted I 
am that you’ve come, but to ask you to dine with us to- 
morrow. Frank’s fearfully busy ; he is longing to see 
you, but he has nothing but his evenings just now. He 
thought, perhaps, you would come and see him, as there 
is a difflcnlty about his coming to see you. Do dine 
with us to-morrow night. We shall only be four.” 

“ Four ? ” inquired Elizabeth. 

Mrs. Frank shrugged her shoulders and smiled. 

“ Ah,” she said, looking up at her hostess in a charm- 
ingly apologetic way, “ you must make up your mind 
to the friends, Elizabeth ; they are quite inevitable. 
Only Mr. Wharton is coming to dinner to-morrow, at 
seven o’clock — did I tell you seven ? He really is very 
pleasant and cultivated and musical. You won’t mind 
him, will you ? ” 

Elizabeth felt disappointed and vexed. She had 
looked forward to seeing Frank alone. It seemed to 
her strange that any outsider should be permitted to in- 
trude upon them at their first meeting. Elizabeth was 
certainly rather inconsistent. She was too much dis- 
posed to ignore her circumstances herself, but she re- 


150 


MRS. LORIMER. 


marked any tendency to ignore them on the part of 
others with considerable irritation. Our faults are gen- 
erally distasteful to us when we see them committed by 
another person. 

However, as she could not reasonably object to meet 
Mr. Wharton, she answered, after a minute’s considera- 
tion : 

Oh no, I shall not mind.” 

“ That’s all right,” said Mrs. Frank Lorimer, getting 
up, settling down the waist of her dress with both hands, 
and then proceeding to button her gloves leisurely. 

‘‘ To tell you the truth, Elizabeth,” she continued, 
slowly, without looking up, “ Mr. Wharton is very de- 
sirous of seeing you. He hoped so much to have met 
you abroad with us. I wonder what he will say about 
you ? He has views about everybody. I think he will 
say you are very original. I think you are very original 
myself, certainly. But,” she added, turning toward 
Elizabeth, who was still sitting by the tea-table, with a 
slightly annoyed expression on her face, ‘‘ do you know, 
you give me rather an uncomfortable impression, Eliza- 
beth ? You always have done so. I always feel as if 
there was a lot more behind ; as if you would surprise 
us all very much some day — go into a convent, or do 
something else very magnificent and slightly unpleas- 
ant.” 

Elizabeth got up hastily. 

“ Don’t be so foolish, Fanny,” she said. Sometimes 
she thought her sister-in-law went a good deal too far, 
and was decidedly wanting in delicate consideration for 
other people’s individuality. 

Elizabeth had none of her companion’s easy self- 
assurance. Her pride and her natural sensibility shrank 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND -WHITE. 151 


equally from such personal observations. The idea of 
Mr. Wharton or any other unknown young man vent- 
uring to give an opinion about her, one way or the 
other, seemed an intolerable impertinence to her. Eliza- 
beth was in a self-conscious and sensitive state of mind, 
owing partly to her loneliness and to the lingering in- 
fluence of the uncomfortable circumstances under which 
she had left Claybrooke. It seemed hard, too, that 
while one set of relations accused her of being light- 
minded and indifferent, the other set should represent 
her as a sort of Hamlet in petticoats, who might be ex- 
pected to indulge in all manner of strange vagaries. 

Mrs. Frank Lorimer went on calmly buttoning her 
gloves. There was a good deal of intention in her talk 
as a rule, though she often seemed to speak at random. 
She generally contrived to say just what she wanted to 
say ; and there always was something that she did want 
to say. When the last two buttons had been success- 
fully fastened, she turned a perfectly amiable and inno- 
cent face upon Elizabeth, and said : 

“Well, then, you come to us to-morrow. That’s 
delightful. Good-by, my dear ; it is most pleasant to 
have you here. And your house is hopelessly — quite 
hopelessly — lovely. Your taste is admirable, Elizabeth. 
Good-by, again.” 

And she rustled off down-stairs, seeming to take 
rather a large share of the general stock of vitality 
away with her — leaving Elizabeth a trifle worried and 
exhausted, with an unpleasant sense, too, that she was 
only on the edge of things, while Fanny Lorimer was 
in the very center of them. 


CHAPTER XII. 


“ All free spirits, mutually permitting one another the liberty of phi- 
losophizing without any breach of friendship.” 

Perhaps there is no position in the world so en- 
tirely pleasant, so free from care and anxiety, as that 
of a young man of about five-and-twenty, with some 
means, some talents, and no wife and family ; who lives 
in “rooms,” cultivates his artistic sympathies, and de- 
votes himself exclusively to himself, and to the friends 
whom he delights to honor. The position is absolutely 
ideal in its freedom and serenity. Xo more serious 
misfortune ever seems to befall the lucky creature than 
a cold in the head, a romantic quarrel with a dear friend, 
or a temporary shortness of cash. Like the lilies of the 
field, he is innocent of toiling and spinning, and yet is 
clothed in a manner not unworthy of a well-bred mod- 
ern Solomon. He partakes freely of the cream of life 
— ^he is petted, he is welcome everywhere, he is exqui- 
sitely untroubled, and rejoices in an entire absence of 
duty and responsibility. 

What wonder if we, who are older, less agile, whose 
clothes are selected for their lasting rather than their 
fashionable qualities ; who are not unconscious of the 
collar as we laboriously drag our well-filled family 
coach after us ; who have, in fact, finished up all our 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 153 


small portion of cream long ago, and are confined to a 
pretty constant diet of the skim-milk of life — ^what 
wonder if we, I say, contemplate these young favorites 
of circumstance with considerable feelings of envy ? 
Domestic joys, the sacredness of home — yes, we are 
quite conscious of the magnitude of these blessings — 
but I grieve to say there are moments when we would 
exchange them willingly — almost with alacrity — for that 
slim figure, bunch of Parma violets, well-cut coat, air 
of gentle resignation, and enchanting immunity from 
near relations ! 

Fred Wharton — toward whom Elizabeth Lorimer 
had conceived somewhat of a dislike, owing to the 
rather forcible manner in which her sister-in-law had 
pressed him upon her notice — belonged to the happy 
order of beings that we have tried to sketch above. 

He was a very pleasant young gentleman, with a re- 
markable capacity for enjoying everything — ^himself in- 
cluded. He was a charming companion, and, though 
not actively or enthusiastically zealous in the service of 
his fellow-creatures, he had the delightful faculty, too 
often wanting in greater souls — in saints and prophets 
and reformers, and all those other admirable people 
whom we admire immensely at a distance, and canonize 
with sincere veneration when they are safely dead — of 
never being in the way. He was never urgent, and 
never attempted to encroach on his neighbor’s individ- 
uality. He had constructed a pretty little system of 
philosophy of his own ; and instead, like most philoso- 
phers, of spending all his time in compassing sea and 
land to make a few unwilling proselytes, he was satis- 
fied with applying his system practically to his own life. 
He was so entirely convinced of the virtues and ade- 


154 


MRS. LORIMER. 


quacy of his philosophy, that he was quite content to 
keep it to himself, not feeling that he required the sup- 
port of agreement on the part of others to confirm his 
own faith in it and give his system stability. 

Wharton was by way of being an artist. He. had 
considerable talent ; but his powers of application were 
not very highly developed. He really preferred con- 
templating his fellow-creatures from a standpoint of 
philosophic calm to any more practical occupation ; and 
only worked earnestly when some particularly attractive 
subject presented itself to him, or when the state of his 
exchequer warned him that times of scarceness were 
not far off. 

Wharton had a natural inclination to like most peo- 
ple. He had many comrades in many different grades 
of society. He had a strong belief that it was a little 
stupid to rest content with any one side of society, how- 
ever agreeable or cultivated. He did not imagine that 
any one person, or set of persons, could satisfy the 
whole of his nature. So he selected many different 
friends, each of whom satisfied some one portion of it, 
believing that it is the highest wisdom to live in as 
many lives as possible. 

At the same time, the very power of imagination, 
which enabled his friendships to rest on such a wide so- 
cial basis, made some persons intolerable to him. There 
was a certain unworldliness or obstinacy — call it which 
you will — about him which often caused him to sacrifice 
some obvious advantage to one of these unreasoning fits 
of repulsion and dislike. Frank Lorimer, who, out of re- 
gard for the necessities of a wife and children, had come 
to temper all personal feeling with a touch of worldly 
wisdom, often took his friend to task on this point. 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD WHITE. 155 

“My dear fellow,” he would say, “what on earth 
can it matter whether you like So-and-so or not? He is 
ready to give you fifteen or twenty guineas for a draw- 
ing of his wife — you want the money — she is a very 
pretty woman — and then they know everybody. And, 
after all, the poor man has really never done you any 
harm.” 

“It’s no good,” Wharton would reply hopelessly. 
“ He rubs me the wrong way, and no number of guineas 
is worth the annoyance of having to know a person I 
don’t like.” 

In fact, Wharton’s urbanity was not quite universal 
yet. The consequence was, that he was regarded by 
some people as rather an uncertain and fantastic young 
man, sadly wanting in that delicate perception of what 
might tend to his own social advancement, which is in 
itself so admirable, and so invariably commands the 
sincere respect of others. 

I suppose everybody’s sense of humor is more or less 
intermittent. Wharton’s sense of humor was certainly 
defective where those whom he disliked were concerned. 
Otherwise, as he stood and contemplated things around 
him, he was sensible of extracting an immense amount 
of amusement from the show. Nothing matters very 
much, after all. From a secure position people have 
managed to watch the progress of the bloodiest battles 
with considerable composure. Sometimes, for a mo- 
ment, Wharton’s cheerful indifference left him, and the 
underlying tragedy of life lay bare before him, con- 
founding and appalling his spirit. But, as a rule, he 
watched the strife serenely enough from his own safe 
and comfortable station, regarding even the painful in-- 
cidents as so much excellent dramatic material. He 


156 


MRS. LORIMEE. 


was too busy noting every detail and eacb delicate ef- 
fect of light and shadow, to be acutely distressed by 
the scene, however pathetic. A very lively interest 
often presents the same appearance to bystanders as 
positive hardness of heart. Wharton’s heart was by no 
means hard, but he was too much engaged in receiving 
vivid mental impressions to have time for any great dis- 
play of personal feeling. 

Living so much with the Frank Lorimers as he did, 
Wharton could not fail to hear a good deal, from time 
to time, about a person as nearly connected with them 
as Elizabeth. Mrs. Frank was not in the habit of culti- 
vating the virtue of reticence, unless she had some spe- 
cial private reason for so doing ; consequently, Wharton 
was pretty well acquainted with Elizabeth’s history. It 
struck him as picturesque. And he was by no means 
inclined to refuse Frank’s invitation to meet her at din- 
ner two days after the latter’s return to London. 

Indeed, he accepted the invitation with a distinct 
sense of satisfaction. There were not very many people 
in town yet, and Wharton had not very much either to 
do or to think about. It would be a pleasant occupa- 
tion to try little experiments upon Mrs. Lorimer, and 
arrive at conclusions regarding her. Wharton had done 
this sort of thing frequently before, and it did not strike 
him as a hazardous proceeding. He took a purely artis- 
tic interest in women, regarding them as an important 
and rather agreeable element in the general constitution 
of things ; in fact, as a sort of dramatic necessity. But 
it must be owned that the domestic side of life was 
rather at a discount with him. Falling in love would 
be horribly agitating, he thought ; and marrying — the 
notion of spending the whole of your natural life in the 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. I57 

constant companionship of one person — seemed inde- 
scribably tedious. He looked forward, therefore, to 
meeting Elizabeth much in the same spirit as he would 
have looked forward to the reading of a pleasant new 
novel. The prospect was an interesting one, but there 
was no touch of personal feeling in the interest it ex- 
cited. 

After thinking the matter over, Elizabeth had de- 
cided to lay all the blame of Mr. Wharton’s presence to 
Fanny Lorimer’s account. Fanny would be bored at 
making one of three ; Frank would probably have pre- 
ferred seeing her quietly alone, but Fanny no doubt had 
objected. Elizabeth was very fond of Frank, and man- 
aged generally to hnd excellent excuses for his little 
shortcomings. When she had recovered from her first 
feeling of irritation, too, she really was not sure whether 
it was not rather a relief to feel that some stranger would 
be at her brother-in-law’s, whose presence would make 
all intimate conversation impossible. Poor Elizabeth 
had decided to harden her heart against the past on the 
day that she laid away her husband’s picture. Some- 
times, fortunately for us, our nature is stronger than 
our will. Elizabeth had determined to do violence to 
her own best instincts : but the instincts were by no 
means dead, they stirred within her, and gave her a 
good deal of trouble at times. 

Mrs. Frank Lorimer’s little dinners 'were always 
charming. They were pretty, and they were excel- 
lent too. Mrs. Frank herself was always delightfully 
dressed, and she had the faculty — which belongs to 
some women — of keeping you continually aware, not 
merely of what she said, but of herself. You never 
forgot that you were in the company of a pretty young 


158 


MRS. LORIMER. 


woman, whose self was more important than either the 
clothes she wore or the words she said. 

Elizabeth, who for so long had enjoyed no more 
lively or inspiring society than a sick-room or the some- 
what bucolic neighborhood of Claybrooke afforded, 
found herself expanding pleasantly in the intelligent 
and genial atmosphere of the Frank Lorimers’ house. 
It was enjoyable to be with people of her own age, to 
feel that she might say what she liked without any fear 
of treading on forbidden ground. It was refreshing to 
listen to her companions’ light gossip and easy criticism, 
to move in their sunshiny atmosphere. She had an un- 
comfortable sense now and then that Wharton watched 
her rather keenly, and tried to draw her out on one or 
two subjects. He did both very gracefully. But Eliza- 
beth was inclined to resent any appearance of interest 
on his part. She connected him with certain feelings 
of annoyance, and was disposed to find fault with him 
on the slightest provocation. 

After dinner, when the little party had returned to 
the drawing-room, Wharton and Fanny Lorimer — who 
were standing together in front of the fire — ^had a 
pretty sharp skirmish over one of their mutual acquaint- 
ances. 

“I simply can’t understand why you all admire 
Clement Bartlett so much, Mr. Wharton,” she said. 
‘‘ And I can’t imagine anybody less fitted for the stage. 
Just think of his figure ; he has such a remarkably bad 
way of moving.” 

“ Why, my dear Mrs. Lorimer, his figure is just his 
strong point. Everybody admits that it will make him 
quite^reputation.” 

Indeed ! the public must be easily pleased,” she 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 159 

answered. “ NTow, can you pretend to tell me that lie 
Tvon’t be perfectly appalling in tights? or fleshings? 
Just think of the severe simplicity of fleshings ! He is 
pretty, I admit, but that’s a mere matter of coloring — 
he’ll lose it very soon. Then he looks so foolish ! ” 

“ Poor Clement,” said- Wharton reflectively. “ Frank 
must be very fond of him.” 

‘‘ Oh, I’m not the least prejudiced against him,” said 
Mrs. Frank quickly ; “ I am calm and unbiased. I let 
my imagination play quite freely round the subject, 
which we know is the sure sign of high culture. It is 
you who are all prejudiced. You are all,” she added, 
waving her Arm, little, white hands comprehensively, 
“ all utterly infatuated ! That’s my opinion.” 

It’s no good,” said Frank, who had been standing 
near them, turning away and sauntering across the room 
toward Elizabeth, who was sitting on a broad lounge at 
right angles to the fireplace. “ Fanny never will have 
the slightest mercy on poor dear Clement, and he really 
is the nicest, most innocent creature in the world.” 

Frank gathered up the tails of his evening-coat in 
either hand, and subsided comfortably on to the seat by 
her side. 

Elizabeth had been listening with some amusement 
to the conversation. She was leaning back lazily, with 
her shapely head thrown up and resting against the 
dusky red covering of the back of the lounge. As 
Frank sat down she turned her face toward him, with- 
out otherwise shifting her easy, graceful position, and 
gave him a quiet smile of welcome. 

The evening had gone so brightly and pleasantly 
thus far, that Frank Lorimer had pretty well forgotten 
the feeling which had prompted him to beg his wife to 


160 


MES. LORIMER. 


let some outsider be present on this occasion. As Eliz-- 
abeth smiled at him, her youthful beauty and the fact 
of her widowhood struck Frank, as strangely at variance. 
He remembered her sweet face haggard with long night- 
watches, and strange with the dread of death and sepa- 
ration, during the days of weary waiting that he had 
spent with her only nine months ago. Instinctively 
he lowered his voice, and fell into a somewhat senti- 
mental key, thereby producing exactly the results that 
he had taken such pains to provide against the day be- 
fore. 

“ I am so glad you have come to London, Elizabeth,” 
he said, gently. ‘‘ I can’t help feeling that we have more 
right to you than anybody else, in virtue of — for Rob- 
ert’s sake, you know.” He paused a moment, and then 
added, “ It would have pained me very much if circum- 
stances had loosened the tie between us.” 

Elizabeth smiled rather faintly. She, too, remem- 
bered those sad days and nights nine months ago, and 
struggled against the remembrance. She did not an- 
swer ; there was a pause. 

“I don’t care about artistic dressing, and I never 
shall,” Fanny Lorimer was saying, meanwhile, to Whar- 
ton. “ Of course it wouldn’t do for me in the least, and 
that, no doubt, does influence me a little. But, can- 
didly, I think people who go in for it generally look 
fearfully dowdy, except on great occasions when they 
are tremendously got up. And then there is a certain 
dressing-gown -and-slippers effect about it all, you know, 
which doesn’t in the least please me. I really believe 
people take to it just as much from laziness as from a 
love of art — ^fewer buttons and strings, you know. Then 
it makes them intolerably conceited. They are always 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 161 


possessed by a cbarming sense that they are the elect, 
and feel wonderfully superior to us, who still believe in 
Paris and high-heeled shoes. The elect have always 
been rather a nuisance, I fancy.” 

As Elizabeth did not respond to his first little speech, 
Frank Lorimer felt obliged to say something more. 

“ This isn’t the time for talking about it all,” he 
said, leaning- toward her. Some things are very sacred 
to one, and one fears to sully them by speaking of them 
at the wrong moment.” 

“ Yes, yes,” said Elizabeth quickly. 

Frank spoke low and earnestly ; not only his words, 
but the tones of his voice and his whole appearance, 
reminded Elizabeth vividly of her husband. The two 
brothers had not really been very much alike, Frank be- 
ing considerably the fairer and more robust-looking of 
the two. But, seeing him now after a long interval, Eliz- 
abeth was conscious of a resemblance between him and 
Robert Lorimer so strong and undeniable that for a few 
minutes she was almost overcome by it. She had tried 
very hard, during the last few weeks, to forget the sad 
past and start afresh. ISTow, as her brother-in-law leaned 
toward her and looked earnestly at her, the past laid 
cold strong hands on her again. For a moment she 
seemed once more to see the man who, as “ a very true 
and perfect knight,” had loved and honored her, who 
had wholly and faithfully given her his heart, to whom 
in life and death she knew she had stood before all other 
women. For a moment she had a sense of irremediable 
loss and sorrow. 

Fanny Lorimer and Wharton had found some other 
subject on which to express diametrically opposite opin- 
ions. Nothing could be more inharmonious than the 


162 


MES. LOEIMEE. 


bright room, their light war of words, and Elizabeth’s 
bitter feelings. She dared not give way to her sudden 
anguish. She straightened herself up and pressed her 
hands hard together, not daring to look round at Frank, 
who was waiting for some answer. He, perceiving that 
she was agitated, but quite unconscious of the extent to 
which he was himself the cause of that agitation, spoke 
again after a few minutes’ silence, wishing to soothe 
her. 

“ I was a little afraid,” he said, his native honesty 
coming to the surface, “ that you might have thought 
me forgetful or unfeeling to-night. I can’t talk much 
about the things I feel most deeply — and it’s no use, 
after all, talking about them. One must go on, not go 
back, you know. Only I should be truly sorry to have 
you think me indifferent. I’m not that, Elizabeth. 
We understand each other, don’t we ?” 

Elizabeth bent her head in assent. Yet she feared 
they did not understand each other. Poor child, with 
her will and desires dragging her one way, and her nat- 
ure and instincts dragging her another, she had much 
ado to understand herself sometimes. 

Frank got up and gave himself a little stretch. He 
had said his say, now he wanted a tone of general cheer- 
fulness to be restored as soon as possible. He crossed 
to where Wharton was standing, and, laying his hand 
on his shoulder, said : 

Do go and play or sing to us, Fred. You and 
Fanny have quarreled quite enough for one evening.” 

‘‘ What shall I play ? ” asked Wharton. 

‘‘ Oh ! anything you like, my dear fellow,” replied 
the other, and went back to his seat by Elizabeth. 

It was observable that all Fred Wharton’s lightness 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 163 

of manner left him as soon as he sat down at the piano. 
His face hardened and sharpened, and his whole figure 
seemed braced and invigorated, as soon as his hands 
touched the keys. He looked several years older, more 
positive, and more serious. The change in him was 
subtle, but it was quite distinct ; and suggested possi- 
bilities of a depth of purpose and of feeling for which 
one did not give him credit at first sight. This change 
in Wharton was always a pleasure and interest to Frank 
Lorimer. He watched for it quite eagerly, and half his 
enjoyment in his friend’s playing consisted in the singu- 
lar effect it produced on the performer himself. There 
was a fine suggestion of power in the way in which 
Wharton took possession of the instrument, and forced 
it to yield up to him all the secrets of its inmost being 
— all the joy and sorrow, the beauty passing human 
speech, and the wild passion we dare not utter even if 
we could, which lie hid within it, and will only answer 
forth to the compelling hand of the master. 

Wharton played a good deal of modern music, full 
of questionings and pathetic lamentations and harmoni- 
ous despairs. 

As Elizabeth listened to the music, it seemed to 
speak out for her the sorrow and confusion, the doubt, 
and hope, and fear that struggled in her mind. There 
was a certain relief in this, yet she felt it was danger- 
ously moving. 

At length Wharton stopped, as if to recover him- 
self. Frank Lorimer, who had been leaning back lazily 
on the lounge — his legs crossed, his hands in his pock- 
ets, and his eyes fixed meditatively on the toe of his 
right shoe— looked up quickly As though to demand 
more. Mrs. Frank gave a little rustle of relief. She 


164 


MRS. LORIMER. 


found mucli of this sort of thing slightly exhausting. 
Elizabeth was silent. 

After a minute’s pause, Wharton began singing. 
His voice was not remarkable ; but his singing was ex- 
cellent, the phrasing good, and the sentiment perfectly 
refined. He evidently knew so exactly what he was 
about that one always had a pleasant sense of security 
and repose in listening to him. The song was slight 
enough — of the order of sentiment that happy young 
people are given to enjoying, because they have very 
little notion what it really implies ; and that older and 
more experienced people are somewhat disposed to fight 
shy of. 

The words ran thus : 

“ My love lies low beneath the grass ; 

The sad sea moans to earth and sky — 

The sweetest joys the soonest pass; 

Good-by, dear heart, good-by. 

“ Her gentle eyes are closed in death ; 

The wind blows low, the wind blows high — 

Our mortal life is but a breath ; 

Good-by, dear heart, good-by. 

“ Her lovely lips are pale and cold ; 

When brown leaves fall, bare branches sigh — 

A merry tale too soon is told ; 

Good-by, dear heart, good-by. 

“ Vain is all glory, all delight. 

Since man is only born to die. 

Glad day lies slain by envious night ; 

Good-by, dear heart, good-by.” 


A se3:tch m black akd white. les 


WLarton sang with an air of strong conviction, 
lending himself to the dreariness of the words, till an 
atmosphere of hopeless melancholy seemed to pervade 
the tasteful, cheerful room. 

Frank Lorimer — conscious that his wife, looking 
extremely well and material, was sitting opposite to 
him ; that his two babies were sleeping peacefully in 
their little white cribs up-stairs ; and that he, person- 
ally, was about as far away from everlasting partings, 
falling leaves, moaning seas, and all the rest of it, as 
any man could reasonably expect to be — sat, smoothing 
his fair beard with one hand, and quietly enjoying this 
little excursion into the kingdom of misery. But poor 
Elizabeth, being already in a rather overwrought state 
of mind, found the song altogether too sad and too ap- 
plicable. When the last wailing “ good-by ” had died 
into silence, she was very nearly crying. 

Wharton got up from the piano. 

“ That is deliciously dismal, isn’t it ? ” he said, smil- 
ing, and relapsing into his ordinary easy manner. “ I 
can’t bear encouraging songs — they are horribly inar- 
tistic ; and nice, heroic, drum-and-trumpet songs don’t 
suit my voice. So,” he added, still smiling and turning - 
toward Elizabeth, “ I take remarkable delight in these 
lamentable ditties.” 

Wharton was sorry he had spoken so lightly when 
he looked at her. From the purely artistic point of 
view it was delightful to contemplate Elizabeth. Her 
long, clinging black dress, her pale pathetic face, the 
soft masses of her brown hair, her gray eyes — wide- 
open — looking out into space, her lips tremulous with 
emotion, with the dusky red background of the lounge 
— altogether she made a charming picture, a sort of 


166 


MBS. LORIMER. 


nineteenth century edition of “ our Lady of Sorrow.” 
Wharton was a little provoked with himself, for he saw 
that his words jarred upon her, and destroyed the effect 
of his song. 

Elizabeth did not answer him ; she turned away 
quickly to Frank Lorimer, and said,, in a rather un- 
steady voice : 

“I think ril go home, Frank. Would you mind 
just walking back with me, as it’s so close by ? ” 

“But, my dearest Elizabeth,” cried Mrs. Frank, 
breaking in with her usual emphasis and vivacity, “ it’s 
so early ! Do remember that you are no longer among 
the Claybrooke magnates, who no doubt regard ten 
o’clock as a sacred hour, devoted, alike by men and 
gods, to saying good-night and going to bed. Remem- 
ber that you have returned to civilized life, and that we 
are enlightened creatures, entirely indiff^^’ent to times 
and seasons, and new moons and fasts. Stay a little 
longer, Elizabeth ; we sha’n’t retire to our rest for hours 
yet.” 

But Elizabeth felt that things had gone too far. 
She was sensible that Wharton was watching her, and 
she knew that she could not recover complete serenity 
and composure. She wanted to be alone and quiet. 

“ I think I’ll go, Frank, please,” she said, again, “ if 
you don’t mind.” 

There was a look of almost piteous entreaty on her 
face which reminded him strangely of the night they 
had parted in the hall at Claybrooke. 

“All right,” he said, “you’re tired, and we’ll go. 
— It isn’t worth while to call a cab, Fanny.” 

“ Well, if you must go, Elizabeth, good-night,” said 
Mrs. Frank. “ Shall I see you to-morrow ? Will you 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 167 


be at home in the afternoon? Oh, well, never mind 
now; you do look fearfully tired, all of a sudden. I 
can send nurse and the children round in the morning 
to find out your plans.” 

To Wharton, Elizabeth said no word good or bad. 
They shook hands in silence. She had an uncomfort- 
able sense that his views regarding her were develop- 
ing, and she felt somewhat defiantly toward him. Vivi- 
section Hn never be very pleasant to the victim, how- 
ever great be the scientific truths that it may eventually 
elucidate. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


“ Motives imply weakness, and the existence of evil and temptation. 
The angelic nature would act from impulse alone.” 

After Elizabeth and Frank Lorimer had gone, Mr. 
Wharton was guilty of a distinct impertinence. He 
stood for fully five minutes looking meditatively into 
the fire, without speaking a word to his charming 
hostess. 

He had enjoyed himself ; that is to say, for some 
hours he had felt decidedly interested. He admired 
Elizabeth Lorimer’s strong clear type of beauty and her 
stately bearing. There was no tiresome pink-and-white 
prettiness about her. He saw that she was one of those 
women in whom the mind and body are so intimately 
connected and so dependent on one another, that ex- 
pression and manner will instantly reveal the real feel- 
ing within, even while the words spoken are quiet and 
restrained. But Wharton had to own that he had 
made a slight mistake, and that the end of the evening 
had not been wholly successful. He had a foolish feel- 
ing of satisfaction, though, in the fact that Elizabeth 
WSLS walking home. “ Our Lady of Sorrow ” going off 
in a four-wheeled cab, or even in a hansom, would 
really have been a little too trying and inharmonious. 
He could picture her tall black-clad figure and pale 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 169 ” 


face, as she moved through the dusky streets, coming 
for a moment into the glare of a gas-lamp, and then 
passing on into the semi-darkness again. Frank was 
the dearest fellow in the world, of course, but he did 
seem rather to mar the picture somehow. Frank was 
too comfortable in any way to suggest romantic possi- 
bilities. Wharton feared that he was probably gruni- . 
bling a little inwardly, at having to turn out into the 
damp at that time of night, instead of dwelling on the 
poetic suggestiveness of the situation. 

Fanny Lorimer was also meditating upon Elizabeth, 
as she sat in a low chair with a piece of softly-tinted 
crewel- work in her hands. Her imagination was, not 
widely sympathetic, but her guesses were generally 
pretty shrewd. She had to confess that she did not 
really understand her sister-in-law. She had often 
speculated as to the exact amount, and as to the quality, 
of the affection with which Elizabeth regarded Robert 
Lorimer. She was disposed to think, though she had 
never hinted such a thing to Frank, that for some reason 
Elizabeth’s love had never been entirely whole-hearted. 
Had there been another lover in the background ? Or 
were the capacities of Elizabeth’s nature only partially 
developed? She could not tell. It occurred to her 
that some day there might be a little dhnoiXment, It 
also occurred to her that it would be very exciting to 
assist in bringing that denoiXment about. 

Just at this point of her meditations Fanny Lorimer 
looked up at Fred Wharton. He certainly irritated 
her sometimes, he seemed so provokingly removed from 
the ordinary cares and worries of his fellow-creatures. 
His calm, contemplative attitude of mind seemed to 
give him a pull over her which she resented. She 
8 


170 


MRS. LORIMER. 


would Rave enjoyed seeing him rather distracted about 
something or other. It is always refreshing to see 
composed people in a fuss or at a slight disadvantage. 
Fred Wharton had a restraining influence upon her, 
too, which she felt to be annoying. He often intimated 
gracefully that she was talking in an exaggerated way. 
She had a disagreeable conviction that he took mental 
notes of everything she said ; and her doubts as to the 
tenor of those notes lent a certain sharpness to her tone 
when she was with him which was not natural to her at 
other times. As she expressed it, “ he made her feel 
draughty ; ” and she was constantly disposed to bristle 
up and defend herself from imaginary attacks on his 
part. 

‘‘Your sister-in-law is remarkably charming,” said 
Wharton, at last. “ She gives one the impression that 
there is a great deal to know in her.” 

“Elizabeth is not very easy to know,” observed 
Mrs. Frank, putting up her eyebrows and indulging in 
a rather provoking little smile. 

“ So I imagine,” said Wharton, composedly ; “ and 
half her charm consists in that. Most people present 
a flat surface to you. You can look right across them 
to the horizon at once. You know just all about them 
after meeting them once or twice. You know what 
views they are bound to take on every given subject, 
just as well as you know the color of their hair or eyes. 
But Mrs. Lorimer makes me think of an unexplored 
country, full of suggestions and great surprises. I 
only saw the coast-line from the sea this evening j but 
I am sure there are the most delightful lakes and rivers 
and hills and valleys inland.” 

Wharton smiled to himself. 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. lYl 

“ I find it very enjoyable,” be said. 

Mrs. Frank Lorimer felt annoyed. This was, sbe 
thought, rather too calm and cool a manner of observ- 
ing any woman. 

Fred Wharton, standing there and smiling com- 
placently into the fire, seemed to her a little wanting in 
solid, comfortable humanity. She resented his disposi- 
tion to regard his acquaintances merely as so many in- 
teresting studies. At this moment he was so occupied 
with his own thoughts, so indifferent — a fact she noted 
as hardly civil — to her presence, that Mrs. Frank in- 
dulged herself with a good long stare at him. She did 
not wish to think anything complimentary about him. 
She felt slightly angry with him, yet she could not 
deny that anyway he was very good-looking. 

He belonged to a type, common enough in Northern 
Italy, but not often met with among Englishmen ; and, 
when met with, always implying some strain of foreign 
blood in the ancestry. He was dark, with eyes of the 
peculiarly clear warm brown that an American writer 
has aptly described as “wine-colored.” His forehead 
was low, and his face perhaps was a little too broad 
across the cheek-bones. The chin was handsome, large, 
and well-rounded ; but the mouth was unfortunately 
English, and not Italian — wanting in fullness and in 
beauty of outline. Wharton’s figure, though by no 
means that of an athlete, was firm and well-propor- 
tioned. Some people who did not like him said that 
his forehead retreated, and that he obviously could not 
be endowed with much in the way of brains. One 
irascible old gentleman, indeed — who fancied that youth 
had lost all its graces and virtues since he had himself 
ceased to be young, and was disposed to indulge in 


172 


MRS. LORIMER. 


rather bitter philippics on the subject of modern 
young men” — had one day declared that '^^Mr. Whar- 
ton had a head like a tomcat.” But, if there was any- 
thing feline about him, it must be granted that he con- 
trived to keep his claws most carefully sheathed, while 
he showed a disposition to purr amiably on almost every 
occasion. At worst, he had some of the acuteness and 
observing power of a cat, while a charming suggestion 
of light-hearted kittenhood still lingered about him. 
It was just this boy -like freshness of feeling, combined 
with a certain indifference, and a pretty shrewd knowl- 
edge of the world, that made Wharton so attractive to 
Frank Lorimer and other men older than himself. Most 
women were a little piqued by his want of personal feel- 
ing, for women rarely care much for a man who sug- 
gests no latent possibilities of developing into alover. 

You seem to have made up your mind,” said Fanny 
Lorimer, after a time, picking up her work and begin- 
ning to draw her needle in and out of the stuff with a 
great show of industry — “you seem to have made up 
your mind that you will be permitted to explore this 
new country as much as you like. Kow really, between 
ourselves, Mr. Wharton, I am a little doubtful about 
that, you know. My sister-in-law is not at all the sort 
of woman who would enjoy being observed as an inter- 
esting study. She is not at all given to confidences. 
To my mind, she is rather inscrutable.” 

“ Ah ! there lies the charm,” said Wharton again. 
“There is nothing in the world more interesting than 
the process of getting to know some people. The dif- 
ficulties only help to keep up the excitement. One 
begins by wishing a little, one ends by wishing quite 
immensely really to know them well.” 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 173 * 


‘‘And when you do succeed at last in knowing these 
remarkable people well, what then ? ” asked Mrs. Frank, 
looking up with a charmingly innocent air of inquiry. 

“ Oh, well,” said Wharton, smiling, “ then I suppose 
you swear eternal friendship.” 

“ Or just drop them,” added she, looking down at- 
her work again ; “ and go off and find somebody else to 
try experiments upon.” 

“You are a little severe, Mrs. Lorimer,” said Whar- 
ton. 

Fanny Lorimer did not answer. For once she felt 
she had scored off her adversary, and she was willing to 
rest on her success. 

“ But now, just as a matter of theory, you know,” 
Wharton asked, after a minute or two, “ do you think it 
possible for a man and woman really to make friends ? ” 

“They generally end by making a good deal more 
than friends or less than friends,” she answered. “I 
never indulge in theories, you know ; I judge by prac- 
tice.” 

“You think it can’t be done, then,” said Wharton. 
“ I’m sorry. It ought to be possible, but I confess, for 
my own part, I have never quite succeeded. People 
always misunderstand one so. Now I have tried sev- 
eral times to make friends with young girls ; but their 
admirable mothers always appeared, like the head of 
Medusa, and turned me to stone with a delicate but 
appalling hint regarding my ‘ intentions.’ I never had 
any intentions, you know. I merely wanted to realize 
the sort of world a young girl lives in. — Married women 
are rather dangerous,” he added, slowly. 

“That’s why you have never really made friends 
with me, I suppose,” said Fanny Lorimer, quickly. 


174 


MRS. LORIMER. 


answered Wharton, looking at her gently 
and calmly ; “ I have never thought you dangerous, 
Mrs. Lorimer. You are quite satisfied with Frank and 
your children, you know.” 

Being a little afraid that this time her adversary had 
scored off her, Fanny Lorimer was silent. 

“ I have had to fall back upon old ladies,” Wharton 
continued, returning to the former subject of his dis- 
course. “ They are very nice and kind, and pet me de- 
lightfully ; but there is a want of dramatic interest 
about them. They live so much in the past, and refer 
so constantly to excellent and clever and witty people 
who died long before I was born. It all seems over, 
you know, and that is slightly depressing.” 

His companion shivered a little ; there was some- 
thing to her painfully tragic in the idea of growing old, 
and of its all being over. 

Wharton moved across to Mrs. Frank, and picked 
up some skeins of crewels which had fallen off her lap 
on to the floor. As he gave them to her he said : 

“ It would be a very great pleasure to me to know 
your sister-in-law better. Will you help me to do so, 
Mrs. Lorimer ? Pray don’t be so barbarous as to forbid 
me to explore the new country.” 

‘‘ Oh ! my wools — ^thanks,” she said. Then getting 
up and settling down the waist of her dress, she added : 

There’s Frank, I believe, coming in. — I don’t think it 
will matter very much, Mr. Wharton, whether I forbid 
you or not. I observe that you have a remarkable 
knack of getting your own way.” 

“ Have I ? ” he said ; “ yes, well, perhaps I have. 
That’s because I am never really very anxious about 
getting it, after all.” 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD WHITE. 175^ 


“ Exactly,” said Mrs. Frank, looking kim full in the 
face. “ I am not the least afraid that you will ever die 
of a broken heart.” 

“I. sincerely trust not,” he answered, laughing. 
“ Though really, Mrs. Lorimer, when one comes to think 
of it, it might be a very interesting experience.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


“ Friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections from storm 
and tempests, ... it maketh daylight in the understanding out of dark- 
ness and confusion of thoughts.” 

Elizabeth had been nearly five months in London. 
Xot only the Frank Lorimers, but a numher of other 
people whom she knew, had come back for the winter. 
An unusually handsome woman, with a pretty house 
and a pleasantly melancholy history, is sure to have a 
good many friends and admirers. Elizabeth refused to 
go out much, but still she saw a good deal of society. 
Five-o’clock tea is such an innocent meal, no one can 
reasonably take exception to it. People would just 
drop in ; and having dropped in once, would drop in 
again. Mrs. Lorimer’s house, and face, and circum- 
stances, began to make her quite a reputation in a cer- 
tain set. 

Yet it must be owned that poor Elizabeth was not 
very happy. She felt the want of a positive interest 
in life. Sometimes she wondered whether she had not 
better throw herself into good works of some sort ; visit 
workhouses and hospitals, take up sanitary reform, or 
become a devoted disciple of the Charity Organization 
Society. She subscribed to various libraries, and read 
hosts of new books. She tried to fancy that strong 
sympathies for art — music, painting, and delightfully 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 177 

harmonious house-furnishings — were enough to occupy 
her mind and heart. Sometimes she thought with envy 
of Mr. Keeper’s enthusiasm for the Cause. Sometimes 
with equal envy of Mrs. Mainwaring’s contented enjoy- 
ment of her position and family traditions. Sometimes 
she envied Fanny Lorimer her children, or Frank his 
newspaper work. Unfortunately, Elizabeth had no one 
distinct talent to which she could devote all her powers. 
She was troubled with the unrest which comes from 
appreciative sympathy with and understanding of Art, 
without the power of original production. At last she 
began to regard herself as a sort of superfluity. There 
seemed to be no special place for her, no real necessity 
for her existence. She grew depressed, and morbid, 
and sad. 

All this Mrs. Frank Lorimer could not help noting. 
It made her really rather uncomfortable, and she did 
not quite know what to do. Resignation was not Mrs. 
Frank’s strong point. If things seemed wrong, she in- 
stantly wanted to set them right, according to her own 
fashion. The consequence was, that she sometimes 
‘‘rushed in” where angels, being more patient and, I 
suppose, more sensible, would have “ feared to tread.” 

So far Fred Wharton’s opportunities of exploring 
the new country had not been very fruitful. Fanny 
Lorimer said that there would be difficulties, and her 
words were proving themselves tiresomely true. Whar- 
ton had to own himself that he hardly knew more of 
Elizabeth Lorimer now, after a good many meetings, 
than he had known the first evening he saw her. He 
fancied that she had been on her guard with him. He 
had sung and played to her often, but she had always 
remained perfectly composed. “ Our Lady of Sorrow,” 


178 


MRS. LORIMER. 


with the misty, gray eyes that gazed despairingly out 
into space, had never appeared on the scene again. 
Wharton knew that he had seen further into the depths 
of Elizabeth’s nature on that first evening than he had 
ever seen since. Sometimes, he thought, he would not 
try to make nearer acquaintance with her. He was a 
little afraid that she took up too much space in his men- 
tal horizon. He was doubtful as to whether he was not 
too much interested in this study of character. Yet 
Wharton was so bitten with the idea of proving that 
it is possible for a man to make friends with a woman, 
and so sure that Elizabeth Lorimer was just the woman 
to try this rather hazardous experiment with, that he 
could not resist making one or two more attempts be- 
fore he finally decided to give the matter up in despair. 

One morning about this period when Elizabeth was 
sitting in her pretty drawing-room trying to read, and 
had wandered away from the subject of her book into 
rather sad meditations concerning her own unnecessari- 
ness, she was interrupted by the advent of Fanny Lori- 
mer and Nini, both looking fresh, and neat, and self- 
complacent. 

‘‘I’ve come, my dear Elizabeth” — began Mrs. 
Frank. 

But she stopped. Elizabeth was not attending to 
her. 

“ Come to me, darling,” said Elizabeth, holding out 
her arms to the slim, dainty little girl ; and then pick- 
ing her up, she kissed Nini’s round rosy cheeks, all cool 
and sweet from the cold morning air. 

Elizabeth made a charming picture, as she stood 
balancing the child on one arm, with her strong supple 
figure thrown slightly back. There was a tender look 


A SKETCH IH BLACK AND WHITE. 179 

in her gray eyes, and a sadness in the curves of her 
beautiful lips, which were in strong contrast to the 
merry, laughing baby face close to her own. 

Fanny Lorimer stood watching her for a moment. 

“You would make a lovely Madonna, Elizabeth,^’ 
she said. “ Mni, poor dear, has a most unsuitable sug- 
gestion of the nineteenth century about her in that cos- 
tume ; but you are exquisitely mediaeval.” 

Elizabeth set the child down on the floor again, with 
a sigh. 

“ There, INini,” she said ; “ run along and look on 
the little table in the corner, between the bookcase and 
the window, you’ll And a new dollie waiting for you 
with a pink hat.” 

Then she turned rather wearily to Mrs. Frank. 

“ I beg your pardon, Fanny,” she said, “ what were 
you going to say ? ” 

“ Oh ! ” she answered, “ I merely came to you with a 
little message from Mr. Wharton. I’m going to tea 
with him the day after to-morrow, to see a sketch he 
has been doing for Frank. He is so anxious that you 
should come too. — Will you ? ” 

“I don’t care,” said Elizabeth, slowly, while she 
watched Hini. 

The child was very busy, critically examining the 
doll ; and apparently, judging by the expression of her 
face, was arriving at satisfactory conclusions respecting 
her new possession. 

Mrs. Frank Lorimer opened her blue eyes rather 
wide at Elizabeth’s reply. She stooped down and slow- 
ly rubbed a spot of mud off one of the frills of her dress. 

“ That is rather an extraordinary form of answer to 
an invitation, isn’t it ? ” she observed, mildly. 


180 


MES. LOEIMER. 


“ Oh, very well, then ! ” said Elizabeth, say I shall 
be quite delighted to go — it’s not such a true answer as 
the other, though.” 

‘‘ But, on the whole, it’s rather more civil,” said Mrs. 
Frank. 

Is this dollie for my very own ? ” interrupted ISTini 
in her shrill, clear little voice. 

“ Yes,” replied Elizabeth ; but you must come and 
pay me for it with a sweet kiss.” 

She knelt down on the floor as she spoke. Nini — 
who regarded kisses as a necessary, but as by no means 
the pleasantest, part of the ritual of receiving gifts — ^ran 
up, administered a hasty salute, then, disengaging her- 
self rapidly from Elizabeth’s encircling arms, turned to 
her mother. 

“Look, look, mother,” she said, “at my dollie’s pink 
hat ! ” 

“You’re a hard-hearted little being, after all, l^ini,” 
said Elizabeth, getting up from her knees. “ I believe 
you care infinitely more for that foolish dollie, made of 
china and sawdust, than you do for me.” 

“ I suppose we were all more or less selfish as chil- 
dren,” observed Mrs. Frank, apologetically. 

“A good many of us remain so when we have 
ceased to be children,” answered Elizabeth rather 
harshly. 

There was a hard line between her dark eyebrows, . 
and she stuck out her under lip, just the least bit, as she 
stood looking at the child and the doll. If Fanny Lori- 
mer had known Mr. Main waring, she would certainly 
have remarked a very strong family likeness between 
him and his niece, at this moment. 

“ Selfishness is not a form of iniquity we invariably 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD WHITE. 181 

leave behind us, in the nursery with our old playthings, 
when we grow up,” added Elizabeth. 

“Is anything particular the matter with you this 
morning ? ” asked Mrs. Frank. 

“ Nothing at all. I have said I am delighted to ac- 
cept Mr. Wharton’s invitation for the day after to-mor- 
row. Pray tell him so.” 

Mrs. Frank gave her shoulders a little shrug. 

‘You’re very inscrutable,” she said ; “however, you 
will come. Then, if it’s fine, we can walk down to Chel- 
sea by the Embankment. I’ll call for you about three. 
— Come along, Nini, and say good-by to kind Aunt Liz- 
zie, who gives you dollies and all manner of lovely 
things.” 

“ Good-by ! ” said Elizabeth, gently, but she did not 
kiss the child again. Nini, it must be allowed, seemed 
supremely indifferent to the omission, and walked off 
with considerable dignity by her mother’s side, prattling 
cheerfully to her new doll. 

The afternoon of Fred Wharton’s little tea-party 
was clear and bright ; and the two ladies set out with 
a certain sense of enjoyment on their walk to Chelsea. 
Elizabeth, with her country breeding, had been accus- 
tomed to take plenty of physical exercise ; lately she 
had been leading rather a sedentary and lazy life, which 
had by no means improved either her health or spirits. 
As she paced along by the river-side this afternoon, the 
keen wind and the thin frosty sunshine seemed to put 
new vigor into her. 

She thought of the short winter days down in Mid- 
landshire years ago— not so very many years though, 
after all — when, the ground being too hard for hunting, 
she and Mr. Mainwaring and young Edward Dadley 


MRS. LORIMER. 


had driven over to Lowcote, and skated till dusk — of 
the wild cries of the frozen-out water-fowl, and the 
clear ringing of the skates on the ice, and the graceful 
motion of the skaters, and the sound of a sudden laugh 
or call in the still air — while the sun, a crimson ball, 
sank down in the west, and the gray country faded into 
the twilight, and the near trees grew black and rigid 
against the flaming evening sky. Ah ! those sweet sad 
days that are no more. Poor Elizabeth would gladly, 
for the moment at least, have missed out all of her life 
that lay between the present and that pleasant time ; 

. would gladly have found herself skating over the gleam- 
ing ice, hand in hand with her boy-lover once again. 

“For pity’s sake, Elizabeth, don’t walk so fast,” 
cried Fanny Lorimer, breathlessly ; for instinctively 
Elizabeth had quickened her pace as she thought of 
Lowcote and the skaters. 

Fanny Lorimer, like all city-bred women, walked, 
not so much with the intention of getting to a certain 
place within a certain time, as with the intention of see- 
ing and being seen. 

“ There is no such desperate necessity for saving flve 
minutes,” she said ; “and of all things in the world, 
that which I abhor most is arriving at anybody’s house 
in a breathless condition, with a face like a peony.” 

“You’ll be frozen if you dawdle,” said Elizabeth, 
sharply. 

“ Yes ; but surely there is some reasonable medium 
between doing that and walking for a wager,” answered 
the other. 

Elizabeth moderated her pace. She was quite 
roused from her reverie. There was nothing dreamy or 
sentimental about Fanny Lorimer ; and she had a curi- 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 183 


oils power of compelling her companions to move in 
her own clear, every-day atmosphere. 

Fred Wharton’s rooms were on the first floor of an 
old-fashioned house, looking out on to the river. He 
had discovered them when he first settled in London, 
and had now thoroughly taken root in them. He liked 
to wander about : but he also liked to collect all man- 
ner of odds and ends of all kinds ; and already his ma- 
terial possessions were so numerous that it was abso- 
lutely necessary for him to have some place to leave 
them in. As far as he had a home, this house in Chel- 
sea was his home. He went away for months at a 
time : but always as a peaceful and comfortable back- 
ground to his wanderings lay the long low old-fashioned 
first-floor rooms, with their view across the wide river. 

Before ringing the bell when they arrived, Mrs. 
Frank Lorimer paused, and then turning to Elizabeth, 
said : 

“Will you go in? I’ll join you in ten minutes. 
I’ve just remembered some tiresome people that I ought 
to call upon, close by here. I’ve owed them a visit for 
months, and this is such an excellent opportunity of pay- 
ing it. I sha’n’t be long.” 

“ I’ll come too,” said Elizabeth, who did not care to 
present herself to their host alone. 

“ Oh, no ! pray don’t,” answered Fanny Lorimer, 
quickly, and with rather unnecessary emphasis. 
“ They’re fearfully dull people ; you wouldn’t like them 
a bit, and there is no reason why you should know them. 
Pray don’t come ; I shall be back directly.” 

To clinch the matter she rang the bell. Nodding to 
Elizabeth and saying Au revoir,^’ she turned quickly 
into the street again. So Elizabeth had nothing for it 


184 : 


MRS. LORIMER. 


but to go up-stairs alone, feeling a good deal annoyed. 
It would seem so odd, she thought. She did not the 
least care to be forced in this way into a Ute-d‘tete 
with Mr. Wharton. 

The room she was ushered into was a large one, with 
three windows looking toward the river. It was low, 
and was furnished quaintly enough, yet with a certain 
disregard for modern canons of taste. But for a soft 
dusky richness in the general effect of it, it might have 
been called rather confused and untidy. Wharton 
seemed to have taken pleasure in collecting the most 
strangely miscellaneous objects, and compelling them 
to form an harmonious whole. Some of his friends 
hinted, indeed, that his rooms looked very much as if 
they belonged to the property-man ; ” but he stern- 
ly refused to modify any peculiarities. “ I live in my 
rooms, not you,” he would say ; “ I enjoy incongruities 
and confusions — it is like life.” 

Elizabeth, on this occasion, was too anxious to ac- 
count for the fact of her appearing all alone, to bestow 
much observation on her surroundings ; but, before she 
had time to offer any explanation, Wharton came for- 
ward to meet her with a look of genuine pleasure. 

‘‘ How very good of you to come ! ” he said cordially. 
There was something so sincere in the sound of his 
greeting that Elizabeth’s sense of embarrassment quick- 
ly melted before it. 

- “ My sister-in-law will be here in a minute or two,” 
she said. “ She deserted me on your door-step, remem- 
bering suddenly that she had a visit to pay close by. 
She begged me to tell you that she would follow me 
directly.” 

Wharton smiled. He felt a little indifferent as to 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD WHITE. 185 

the length of Mrs. Frank Lorimer’s absence. Elizabeth 
looked very young and attractive after her quick walk 
in the frosty air. There was an unusual color in her 
cheeks, and her gray eyes shone bright and dark under 
their long lashes. 

“ Ah ! ” said Wharton, “ it is a long way for Mrs. 
Frank Lorimer to come. I am only too glad that she 
should make the expedition useful to herself as well as 
pleasant to me.” 

There was a moment’s pause. Elizabeth did not 
quite know what to say next, as her companion’s last 
observation called for no rejoinder. 

‘‘ You have been doing a sketch for Frank,” she ob- 
served at last, a little awkwardly. “ May I see it ? ” 

Oh ! it’s rather horrible now that it’s finished, Mrs. 
Lorimer,” he answered. “ I thought it was going to be 
nice at first — ^however, there it is on the easel in the 
window, if you really care to see it.” 

Elizabeth moved across the room and stood looking 
at the picture. It was a graceful misty drawing of lit- 
tle Nini, worked in charcoal. Wharton had begun it one 
evening at the Frank Lorimers’, when the child, tired 
with a game of play, had lain half asleep on her moth- 
er’s knee. The subject caught his fancy and he had 
spent some time in working it out. 

‘‘ But it’s lovely ! ” said Elizabeth. 

‘‘ I’m so glad you like it,” the young man answered. 
He was standing near her, and watching her intently 
as she bent forward to look closely at the drawing. 

“You draw as well as you play,” she said sud- 
denly, turning round to him. “You are very fortu- 
nate.” 

She spoke seriously — not as praising his talents, but 


186 


MES. LOEIMER. 


rather, he thought, as bidding him give thanks for the 
possession of them. 

‘‘Am I very fortunate?” he said, smiling again. 
“ I am not quite sure.” 

“I think so,” answered Elizabeth. “You artists 
have troubles like the rest of us — some, I suppose, that 
we more commonplace people can not fully compre- 
hend ; but you have the intense joy and relief of utter- 
ance. Ah ! ” she said, “ I for one keep all my pity for the 
poor dumb souls who can only feel and can not speak.” 

Elizabeth remembered the thoughts which had so 
moved her as she walked along by the river. She 
-would have given a good deal to possess the power of 
speaking out the emotions they had caused her in some 
artistic form. 

“The disappointment is generally more present to 
my mind than the relief, I’m afraid,” said Wharton. 
“All one’s work falls so lamentably short of what one 
wants to do.” 

“ Still you have something to do, something to work 
for,” she answered. “You have the satisfaction of 
knowing what you want, even if you can’t always reach 
it. So many of us waste our lives utterly, because we 
never know exactly what to aim at.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Wharton, shaking his head. “ People 
are all so much too fond of doing nowadays. Why 
can’t they leave the doing alone, and just be — isn’t that 
enough? They hurry, and worry, and scramble, and 
quite forget what a much more dignified and graceful 
spectacle they would present to the universe if they 
were a trifie less busy and anxious.” 

Elizabeth sat down thoughtfully on a chair in front 
of the easel. She paused a moment before speaking. 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 187 


“ But surely one must Lave a distinct object in life,” 
sbe said. 

“ Must one ? ” asked Wbarton. “ I bave never been 
quite able to see tbe necessity for it.” 

Elizabeth looked up at bim inquiringly. 

“.Isn’t it enough,” be said, “to enjoy one’s self, to be 
pleasant and to please one’s friends ? ” 

“Perhaps — if you bave friends,” sbe observed. 

“ Why, you must have plenty of friends, anyway, 
Mrs. Lorimer,” said be, brightly. 

“ If you mean just tbe people whom I know, yes, I 
bave plenty,” answered Elizabeth. 

Sbe was too much absorbed in her own train of 
thought to observe that the conversation bad assumed a 
new complexion, and bad drifted away from tbe gen- 
eral into tbe personal. 

“ But,” sbe added, “ I am afraid, like most women, I 
know very little about real friendship ; about tbe sort 
of friendship which really makes part of one’s life. I 
should like to bave friends as men have them, but I 
don’t know bow to begin.” 

Elizabeth spoke quite simply, thinking merely of 
her own feelings and not at all of her companion. 

A very bright light came into Fred Wharton’s 
brown eyes, and be bent forward toward her as be an- 
swered : 

“ I fancy I know a good deal about what men call 
friendship — tbe friendship which, as you say, makes a 
real part of one’s life. If you want to know about it I 
think I could teach you.” 

Suddenly the singularity of her position struck 
Elizabeth. She had quarreled with the narrow old- 
world conventionalities down at Claybrooke — surely 


188 


MES. LOEIMER. 


she was getting far enough away from conventionality 
now ! She turned her head and gazed out across the 
murky river, running so swiftly and silently in the 
gathering darkness down to the sea. The sky was very 
pale and clear above. Along the roadways flickered 
the long lines of gas-lamps. It looked cold, and hard, 
and cruel, somehow, out there in the dusk. Then she 
turned again and glanced round the warm luxurious 
room, with its fanciful furniture and rich mellow color- 
ing. Finally, she looked up at the dark handsome face 
of the young man who stood waiting before her. 

She gave a long, shuddering sigh, as of one waking 
from a troubled dream ; and then said, gently : 

‘‘ I think I should be very glad if you would teach 
me.” 

There was an expression almost of triumph about 
Wharton. 

“ That is kind of you,” he said, simply. Then he 
added, holding out his hand — “It is a compact, Mrs. 
Lorimer — you must give me your hand on it.” 

Elizabeth laid her hand in his for a moment rather 
unwillingly. She wondered what she might be binding 
herself to. Did it really mean anything, or was it 
merely a pretty bit of child’s play ? 

Mrs. Frank Lorimer, returning from her visit and 
coming into the room just at the conclusion of this little 
ceremony, was conscious of receiving a certain very 
vivid impression. She paused only for an instant of 
time in the doorway, before Wharton, turning round, 
came forward to welcome her ; but in that instant her 
innocent blue eyes had pretty thoroughly taken in the 
situation. — Elizabeth was sitting in front of the easel, 
sideways on a quaintly-shaped chair, with her hands 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 189 


resting, lightly clasped together, on the hack of it. She 
had unfastened her thick fur-trimmed mantle at the 
neck, and it hung in heavy folds from her shoulders, 
showing part of the body of her black dress and the 
white about her throat. The hair on her forehead had 
been ruffled by the wind during her walk, and curled 
up about the edge of her bonnet, softening the hard line 
of it. She was looking up, with her lips parted as 
though about to speak. The light from some candles 
in brass sconces near the fireplace fell full upon her 
face. 

Wharton’s back was toward Mrs. Frank. She could 
not see how he was looking ; but his attitude seemed 
expressive, she thought, of more than mere polite tol- 
eration of his fair companion. 

“ Oh ! ” said Fanny Lorimer, as her host came to- 
ward her, ‘‘my dear Mr. Wharton, I owe you ten thou- 
sand apologies. I had wanted to pay that visit for such 
ages — I was sure you would forgive my being a little 
late — and then, to my utter distraction, the wretched 
people were at home. And can you tell why it is,” she 
added, “ that the less power people have of entertaining 
you, the longer they are determined that you shall stay 
with them ? — Thanks ! yes, I will sit down. — How good 
of you to wait tea for me ! I have known thoroughly 
uninteresting people, who insisted upon asking one to 
dinner at half-past six and requiring one to stay till 
Heaven knows what time of night, simply, apparently, 
because they had nothing on earth to say to one. 
Whereas delightful people, whom you feel you would 
be happy to spend years with, ask you at a quarter-past 
eight, and turn you out again at eleven. How why is 
it?” 


190 


MRS. LORIMER. 


I must think the question over before I venture to 
give an answer,’’ said Wharton, smiling. “ You, at all 
events, Mrs. Lorimer, may claim to belong to the de- 
lightful section of society, since you are so late in ar- 
riving here to-day.” 

Fanny Lorimer laughed. She felt in the most 
charmingly amiable humor. 

While Wharton made tea, she wandered about the 
room, chattering all the time. She inspected the sketch 
of Nini, with which she declared herself absolutely en- 
chanted, and praised everything liberally, the tea in- 
cluded. 

“ How I wish you would do us a picture of Eliza- 
beth ! ” she said at last. “ Somebody really ought to do 
a picture of her. She looked like the most delightful 
mediseval Madonna when she was nursing Hini the 
other day.” 

The advantage of having a reputation for talking 
very much is, that it gives you admirable opportunities 
of saying a host of things you want to say, without 
giving them an appearance of undue prominence. Mrs. 
Frank always managed to serve her own little purposes : 
but she merged her important sentences so cleverly in 
the general flow of her conversation, that they seemed 
at the time in no way particularly remarkable. 

It was only when Elizabeth shook hands with him, 
just as she was going away, that Fred Wharton re- 
ferred to Mrs. Frank’s suggestion. 

Will you let me make a drawing of you ? ” he 

said. 

“ Is that one of your lessons in friendship ? ” asked 
Elizabeth, smiling — ‘‘because, if so, I suppose I am 
bound to say yes.” 


PART II. 


CHAPTER I. 

“ A mere spectator of other men’s fortunes and adventures, and how 
they act their parts, which methinks are diversely presented unto me, as 
from a common theatre or scene.” 

Some people, I fear, may not unjustly complain of 
the commonplace characters and trivial incidents which 
they are invited to contemplate in this little tale ; and 
which are hardly worth the ink and paper — let alone 
the time — that has been wasted upon them. But I 
would protest, with all humility and sincerity, that I 
do not lay claim to the title of poet or artist, still less 
to that of moralist or preacher. Those who want illu- 
mination and instruction must seek it elsewhere ; and 
surely in the present day it is easy enough to get an 
immense amount of information concerning all subjects 
at a very small cost. Sometimes, indeed, one is a little 
tempted to wonder whether the teachers do not out- 
number the scholars, since most persons whom one meets 
with are so willing to expound all dark sayings and re- 
veal all mysteries. 

I have no claim to belong to the pedagogic and im- 
proving class ; and would merely ask the gentle reader 
— if in these enlightened days that kind and sympathetic 


192 


MRS. LORIMER. 


being still exists — to picture some lazy loiterer, arrayed 
in a torn cloak and tattered jerkin, and a cap wbicb 
once bad bells to it — tbeir old-world jangling was so 
sadly out of tune with the triumphal war-march of 
modern progress, that he pulled them all off long ago 
— sitting among the dusty grass and wild flowers, by 
the wayside of life, and telling simple stories to the 
passers-by. Not telling them to the wise and prudent 
and successful, who would certainly call him a sturdy 
beggar, a mere cumberer of the ground, and bid him 
either set about some useful business, or proceed to im- 
prove himself off the face of the earth, with all possible 
dispatch ; but telling them to quiet ordinary folk, who 
are not very wise or very successful, who are a little 
confused with the turmoil and the strife of tongues, 
and a little weary and foot-sore with the journey ; beg- 
ging them to rest awhile with him by the roadside, and 
listen to simple tales of friendship and of sorrow, of 
laughter and of lovers’ kisses ; begging them to judge 
gently all the barren, groping, uncertain lives around 
them, and to smile — if they will — but smile very ten- 
derly at the strange tragi-comedy of every day. He 
has neither advice to give, nor solution to offer — the 
poor Fool, in his ragged motley, is hardly likely to have 
discovered the panacea for this world’s troubles, when 
the great and learned and courageous have failed so 
signally to do so. But he clings to one or two fantastic 
hopes that have lingered with us through many ages ; 
and does not despair, as he watches — from among the 
dusty grass and flowers — the anxious eager multitudes 
jostling each other along the great high-road, which 
stretches across the isthmus of this life, between the 
two eternities. 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 193 


It is always an ungracious task to try to show any 
unvarnished side of truth ; and the unvarnished truth 
concerning themselves has usually been singularly un- 
palatable to members of the human family — only the 
Fool would attempt to present it. His acknowledged 
want of wits may save him from the angry punishments 
with which men are wont to visit the indiscretion of 
those who try to tell them what they really are. Under 
the shelter of the cap and hells, alone, can one venture 
to say that absolute black and white, undoubted hero 
and villain, are hardly ever to be met with ; and that 
heaven and hell certainly belong to quite another state of 
being than to this present one — that original sin is pretty 
evenly distributed among us all ; that even the saint 
may be caught wearing strangely dirty old clothes, 
while the sinner is found arrayed, now and then, in a 
garment of genuine righteousness ; that, while man is 
very little higher than the beasts, he is, also, very little 
lower than the angels. 

In treating poor Elizabeth Lorimer’s character from 
this confusing and unsatisfactory point of view, I know 
that I run the risk of losing her many friends and ad- 
mirers. Yet, in truth, she was very far from being an 
ideal woman. She could neither satisfy those excellent 
persons who have a sentimental longing after what has 
been called “the constant mourner,” nor could she please 
the more light-minded class, who are disposed to recom- 
mend plenty of eating and drinking to-day, since the 
time for all such enjoyment may be passed and over by 
to-morrow. She was subtly compounded of good and 
evil, nobility and frivolity, of fine aspirations and com- 
monplace selfishness. She was capable of determining 
against her higher instincts, and then repenting of her 
9 


194 


MRS. LORIMER. 


error, all too late, like many another young creature. 
She loved life, and would fain have seen good days ; 
and — perhaps consequently — she had but a misty and 
indistinct perception of the infinite value of a humble 
spirit and a broken and contrite heart. 

bfearly a year had passed away since Elizabeth had 
made her compact with Fred Wharton in the quaintly- 
furnished studio down by the river. She had spent the 
early summer in London, and then had gone abroad 
with the Frank Lorimers — Wharton, of course, being 
of the party — and had studied the art of Platonic friend- 
ship on the wild sea-shore and among the bare, windy 
uplands of Brittany. Her connection with Claybrooke 
had been restricted to letters. She had offered to go to 
the Rectory, it is true ; but, unfortunately, she hap- 
pened to propose herself just at the time when Mr. and 
Mrs. Mainwaring were about to make their yearly visit 
to Selford ; and it was too much to expect their digni- 
fied and stately plans to be set aside for Elizabeth — 
whose appreciation of Claybrooke and of its owners’ 
society, her aunt, at least, regarded as so distinctly lim- 
ited. Mr. Mainwaring had paid her one or two visits 
in London, which were chiefly remarkable for their ex- 
treme brevity. The Rector, it must be confessed, did 
not find himself in very active sympathy with his niece’s 
present surroundings. 

Face downward, in the narrow writing-table drawer, 
still lay the charcoal sketch of Robert Lorimer. Eliza- 
beth had never moved it from its resting-place since 
the day when she had decided to forget the past, and 
to try and find fresh joy and hope in the future. In 
some fabrics it is possible to patch a rent for a time ; 
but eventually the stuff gives and gives, and, as we 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 195 


know, tke new piece only makes the hole in the old gar- 
ment worse in the end. Elizabeth’s determination not to 
grieve for her husband’s death had, in a way, kept her 
attention fixed on the fact of his death. She had striv- 
en to patch the cruel rent that had been made in her 
happiness ; but as time went on the threads began to 
strain and give out, and the sense of the magnitude of 
her misfortune grew greater instead of lessening. 

At moments, by the sea-shore, or on summer even- 
ings when Fred Wharton poured out his whole soul in 
music and in song, or as she watched Frank and Fanny 
Lorimer playing with their two children, the sense of 
her own loss and loneliness would almost overpower 
Elizabeth. She dreaded these feelings of sorrow, she 
fought against them, and was glad when the trivial in- 
terests of every day claimed her whole thought and at- 
tention. To her companions she seemed to be drifting 
further and further -away from the past. She appeared 
gay and cheerful, and yet there was an unrestfulness 
and a certain necessity for excitement about her, which 
puzzled Fanny Lorimer a little sometimes. She won- 
dered whether Elizabeth was not developing feelings 
which could not, strictly, be described as Platonic for 
Fred Wharton. 

.i^But I think Elizabeth may be quite exonerated from 
any charge of this kind. She was almost painfully con- 
scious that, if it were possible for her to meet Robert 
Lorimer now, for the first time, she might love him in 
a very different fashion to that in which she had loved 
him when they met nearly three years before. As her 
experience of life widened and her knowledge of men 
and women increased, she appreciated more and more 
the true worth of her husband’s character. She real- 


196 


MBS. LOEIMER. 


ized, too, how cruelly he must have suffered in bidding 
good-by to life and love, in the very prime of his man- 
hood. Elizabeth became aware that it might not be 
impossible for her to worship — all too late — the memory 
of the man whom she had loved very inadequately while 
he lived. That fashion of stoning the prophets, and sub- 
sequently — in a fit of bitter remorse — building them 
magnificent sepulchres, did not die out with the old dis- 
pensation ; but is practiced pretty freely by husbands 
and wives, parents and children, relations and friends, 
even to the present day. 

If Fred Wharton had been asked to give a disquisi- 
tion on Platonic friendship about this period, he would 
have pronounced it a very interesting, but slightly agi- 
tating, form of entertainment. He had seen a great 
deal of Elizabeth, he knew her remarkably well ; yet — 
carrying out his old metaphor of the unexplored coun- 
try — he told himself that though the hills, and valleys, 
and lakes, and streams, were very delightful, there was 
still an unknown region, far inland, into which he had 
never yet succeeded in penetrating. He was haunted 
by the same notion as Fanny Lorimer — namely, that 
some day Elizabeth would develop suddenly, in an un- 
looked-for direction, and surprise him very greatly. 
There was something rather fascinating in this idea ; it 
made her all the more interesting to him ; yet it troub- 
led him too. Wharton hated surprises. He had tried 
to imagine all sorts of combinations of circumstances 
which might produce this sudden development in Eliza- 
beth, so that he might be prepared for it when it came; 
but he could not see his way at all clearly yet. He told 
himself, however, that women certainly were very in- 
teresting, and he began to neglect his other friends a 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITK 197 


little. Men are comparatively easy to understand ; they 
are nice, comfortable creatures, but make by no means 
such suggestive and exciting companions as a handsome, 
brilliant, gray-eyed young lady. 

At the beginning of the winter season, that burning 
and shining light of the dramatic profession, Clement 
Bartlett, came out in a new piece. His friends made a 
strong rally round him, filled innumerable stalls, and 
applauded, even his faintest efforts, with a vigor and 
enthusiasm which, it is to be feared, were slightly in- 
comprehensible to the rest of the house. Be that as it 
may, on the following day — a Sunday — Mr. Bartlett, 
being anxious to thank his loyal supporters and talk 
over the position with them generally, held a sort of 
levee in his rooms, in the afternoon, at which the mem- 
bers of the “Modern Society of Friends” — as Mrs. 
Frank called them — mustered in great numbers. Frank 
Lorimer of course was there. As the sub-editor and 
dramatic critic of a well-known paper, he was naturally 
very precious in the young actor’s sight. 

Fred Wharton went too — not so much because he 
desired particularly to add his voice to the chorus of 
praise, as because he had nothing particular to do, and 
thought he should enjoy a walk across the park with 
Frank. He was rather silent and preoccupied. He had 
been working away at Platonic friendship for a long 
time now, and he found it more engrossing and bewil- 
dering than ever. He began to think a man wanted a 
very steady head who meant to go in for much of that 
sort of thing. 

It was not till he and Frank were walking home 
under the bare black trees in the growing darkness, 
while the air was full of the sound of church-bells — that 


198 


MES. LOEIMEE. 


strange sound in which sorrow treads so hard on the 
heels of joy — calling faithful souls to their evening 
prayers, that Wharton seemed with a certain effort to 
shake off his preoccupation, and that he began to talk 
again. 

“ I’m rather dissatisfied with myself, Frank,” he re- 
marked suddenly. It is a new sensation. I suppose 
it’s a sign that I am growing old.” 

Frank Lorimer was running over some sentences in 
his mind, in which he was trying to adjust the rival 
claims of friendship and truth in a critique on Clement 
Bartlett’s performance of the night before. He an- 
swered at random, not thinking what he was saying : 

“ Oh, you add dissatisfaction to all the other dis- 
agreeables of old age then, do you ? ” 

‘‘I don’t add it,” answered Wharton, quickly. 
“ Heaven preserve me from adding one straw to a bur- 
den which I shall have to bear myself some day ! It 
will be quite heavy enough anyway without my private 
contributions. But it is obvious,” he added, “ that old 
people must be dissatisfied with themselves. If they 
have any powers of refiection left, they must be pretty 
keenly sensible of the immense number of mistakes they 
have succeeded in making in the course of their lives.” 

Frank Lorimer drew his hand down reflectively over 
his fair pointed beard. Really he could not honestly 
praise Clement Bartlett’s performance very much. Fort- 
unately there was the acknowledged excellence of the 
young man’s figure to fall back upon ; but it is rather 
difficult to fill half a column with a eulogy on a man’s 
figure. The public might object to it, and not without 
reason, Frank felt. Meanwhile common civility de- 
manded that he should make some comment on Whar- 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 199 


ton’s disquisitions upon the distressing position of aged 
and reflective souls. 

“Are you painfully sensible of mistakes, then, just 
now ? ” he asked, abstractedly. 

“ I believe I am rather worried,” answered the other.' 

This was such an entirely surprising announce- 
ment as coming from Fred Wharton, of all people in 
the world, that Frank Lorimer was roused effectually 
from his meditations upon Mr. Bartlett. He looked 
round sharply at his companion ; but in the dusk it was 
difficult to catch the expression of his face. 

“You’re a little out of sorts, my dear fellow,” said 
Frank. “ You have taken to never going out anywhere. 
Half the men at Bartlett’s this afternoon were complain- 
ing that they never see you now.” 

“ It’s a horrible thing,” said Wharton, half laughing 
and half in earnest. “ I am getting a little bored. I 
am beginning to feel uninterested.” 

“ Oh, you are only hipped,” answered the other. 
“You want more society.” 

“ Perhaps I do,” said Wharton, uneasily. “ I seem 
to be changing somehow ; I don’t know quite what is 
coming over me. I used to look on at life so content- 
edly. I used to feel — I suppose all the talk at Clement 
Bartlett’s this afternoon has put the idea into my head 
— as if I had got a very good private box at the general 
show. I just sat still and watched the play. I wasn’t 
unsympathetic ; indeed, sometinies I was inclined to 
applaud quite vigorously, and the tragic scenes upset 
me dreadfully. But I had a comfortable feeling that, 
as I had not written the piece, I was in no way impli- 
cated in the course of it. How I begin to wonder 
whether I have not been rather cold-blooded, and 


200 


MBS. LORIMER. 


wbetlier I bave not made a mistake in not being more 
actively human.” 

‘‘Marry,” observed Frank Lorimer, smiling. “It is 
tbe best cure for your state of mind. A wife is pretty 
sure to make you sufficiently human.” 

Wharton stopped, and said, almost petulantly : 

“Why do you say that? It is tiresome. It is 
dreadfully wanting in originality.” 

Frank was silent. He did not understand his friend’s 
sudden outburst of irritability. He had spoken quite 
innocently, and without any real desire that his advice 
should be taken. If he had been asked, indeed, Frank 
would certainly have given it as his opinion that Whar- 
ton would probably never marry, that it would be a 
pity if he should do so, as it would rob him of half his 
present charm. 

They walked on in silence for a little while under 
the bare trees. If people were cross, Frank thought, it 
was always safest to let them alone. Bad temper is 
like a cold in the head — it is much best to let it have 
its course, instead of rushing in with consolatory cam- 
phor, and sal- volatile, and other well-intentioned reme- 
dies, which generally end by merely adding one or two 
new discomforts to the original one. Frank did not 
agitate himself, but relapsed into his difficult piece of 
criticism again. 

“And I’m not at all sure that I am so very anxious 
to be cured of my present state of mind, after all,” said 
Wharton, after a pause. “ Anyway, I am not the least 
inclined to take the desperate measure you propose. 
The cure would be considerably more confusing than 
the disease, it seems to me. I am only angry with my- 
self for feeling these things at all.” 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 


201 


Frank had just got hold of an admirable sentence. 

“ Then don’t feel them, my dear fellow,” he said. 

“ I couldn’t give up my attitude of spectator alto- 
gether, you know,” Wharton went on argumentatively. 
Tie seemed to attach very much more importance to 
Frank Lorimer’s random suggestion than it at all de- 
served. “Women are so differently constituted, to us, 
that it is a thousand to one if I should find any woman 
— a really charming one, you know — who would he 
willing just to sit still and observe with me. She would 
get excited some day, and want to go down on to the 
stage into the thick of it all.” 

He paused, and then added, lightly : 

“ I am very philosophic, personally I am not at all 
impulsive ; hut if she went down, I am dreadfully afraid 
I should not have sufficient strength of mind to let her 
go alone.” 

“ Probably not,” answered Frank Lorimer, smiling. 

“And that would be intolerable,” said Wharton. 
“ It would upset all my system. It would be the great- 
est mistake of all. Ho,” he added, as they passed out 
of the comparative quiet of the park into the noise and 
movement of Piccadilly ; marriage is out of the ques- 
tion from my point of view.” 


CHAPTER II. 


“ When all the -world is old, lad, 

And all the trees are brown, 

And all the sport is stale, lad. 

And all the wheels run down ; 

Creep home, and take your place there, 

The spent and maimed among ; 

God grant you find one face there 
You loved when all was young ! ” 

One dull, late, winter afternoon Mr. Mainwaring 
was riding slowly home toward Claybrooke. There 
had been a frost the night before, which had given in 
the morning, leaving the roads deep in greasy yellow 
clay-mud. Long lines of half-melted snow lay under 
the hedges on the side away from the sun. The hedges 
themselves were a hard purplish black in the gathering 
dusk. The broad pasture-lands looked brown and sad 
in the uncertain light ; and the spaces of turf, on either 
side the road, were coarse and boggy from the wet, 
which stood in little dirty pools every here and there. 
A bleak southeasterly wind cried shrill through the 
bare hawthorns and the scattered elm-trees, promising 
more snow. It was a chilly dreary evening, on which 
even a healthy unimaginative man might well be af- 
fected by the outward aspects of nature ; might be full 
of gloomy fancies, and take depressing views of human 
nature and of things in general. 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 203 


Mr. Mainwaring Lad had a trying day, and was a 
little disposed to think that everything was “ going to 
the bad.” He was chilled and somewhat tired; but, 
wishing to spare his horse, he jogged along slowly up 
the muddy road under the broad sweep of lowering 
gray sky. His head was sunk into the collar of his 
coat, which he had pulled up to keep off some of the 
cold southeasterly wind ; his shoulders were up to his 
ears ; he held the bridle with stiff fingers ; both he and 
his big chestnut hunter were splashed and plastered 
with clay-mud from head to foot. He had ridden a 
good way to the meet in the morning, which had been 
bright enough with pale winter sunshine ; had seen 
friends, and had a cheery time till about one o’clock ; 
then his horse cast a shoe, and he had wasted some time 
seeking a blacksmith to put on another. When he 
came up with the hounds again they were running, and 
he had about a quarter of an hour’s gallop. They lost 
their fox, and moved off to draw a distant covert ; 
drew it blank ; and about half-past three, with a snow- 
storm gathering away down in the southeast, Mr. Main- 
waring found himself with a good fourteen miles to 
ride home alone. 

He was disgusted, too, with several little social inci- 
dents in the day’s work. IsTot even fox-hunting seemed 
to him quite a safe sport for an English gentleman in 
these degenerate times, when the sons of tradesmen, 
who had made all their money in candles, or stockings, 
or soap, rode better horses than he could afford to ride, 
and treated him as an equal instead of a superior — 
hardly treated him as an equal, indeed, but rather as an 
antiquated and behind-the-world sort of old gentleman, 
who was by no means up to the level of the civilization 


204 


MRS. LORIMER. 


of the present day. He was specially incensed against 
a certain young man of boisterous manners and of a 
somewhat flashy appearance — nearly related, it was said, 
to some well-known London tobacconist — who had lately 
settled in the neighborhood, kept a lot of horses, and 
hunted four or five days a week. The young man in 
question happened to be particularly bumptious and in- 
terfering by nature ; but Mr. Mainwaring, when annoyed, 
did not always take the trouble to distinguish carefully 
between the sins of the individual and those of the class 
to which he belonged. He kindly accredited the race 
of retail tradesmen in general with the offenses of this 
young man in particular, and condemned them all ; 
while the worst of it was, that Mr. Mainwaring could 
not deny that the fellow really rode hard, and had 
plenty of pluck. 

“ There’s nothing left,” he grumbled, “ that a gen- 
tleman can do, without finding himself rubbing shoul- 
ders with half the shopkeepers in the country. What 
with a radical Parliament and a radical press, the poor 
old country’s going to the dogs as fast as it can. Fort- 
unately, my time won’t be very long. I shall be safe 
in the churchyard before the worst of it comes, please 
God, but it’s a bad lookout ahead — very bad.” 

It struck Mr. Mainwaring that his own life, looking 
back on it, was very like the history of that day. A 
cheery start in the morning sunshine ; a capital horse 
under him ; hope for the coming hours ; plenty of 
friends ; a splendid burst for a few minutes over the 
grass, when the pace was hot and his blood tingled with 
healthy excitement. Then pottering about the dreary 
woodlands, in the chill mist, drawing and drawing for 
the fox that could never be found ; and, at last, the 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 205 

long lonely ride home in the cold and the growing 
darkness — the day dying, the sport all over, only the 
weariness and want of success left. Dirty, tired, be- 
spattered, old — that was what it all came to in the end. 
Alas ! for the pity of it. 

Mr. Mainw^aring stuck out his under lip and set his 
teeth hard, bent his head a little lower to avoid the bit- 
ter wind, and trotted on, slowly and doggedly, up the 
muddy road, with its wet strip of turf on either hand, 
and bare, black hawthorn-hedges. 

The hall at the Rectory, with a glowing fire of great 
logs upon the hearth ; Bunton waiting with dignified 
solicitude to attend upon his master ; and Mrs. Main- 
waring, with her spotless cap, pretty little face, and 
tender wistful manner, coming forward in the ruddy 
light to welcome her beloved lord — all these things 
were in most agreeable contrast to the sad, cold, gray 
night outside. 

“ I am too dirty to come near you, my dear,” said 
Mr. Main waring, looking kindly at his wife. I’ll go 
into the study for ten minutes and get a good warm — 
and then, Bunton, I’ll have a hot bath in my dressing- 
room, before dinner.— We’ve had a wretched day,” he 
added, as he followed Mrs. Mainwaring into the study. 

The grass is as heavy as the plow ; and there seem to 
be no foxes in the country. Only had about ten min- 
utes’ gallop the whole day. Found a fox in Michael’s 
Spinny, just the other side of the turnpike at Lowcote 
— ^ran him into a drain on Staley’s farm at Highthorne, 
and there was an end of the whole thing.” 

Mr. Mainwaring stood in front of the study fire, 
with his hands under the tails of his hunting-coat, 
stamping his feet to get a little warmth into them, and 


206 


MKS. LOEIMER. 


thereby plentifully besmearing the floor .with the half- 
dry mud off his boots. 

Mrs. Main waring abhorred a mess as sincerely as 
Nature is said to abhor a vacuum ; but she was always 
too thankful to get her husband home, safe and sound, 
on these occasions, to make any objections to the large 
supply of wet clay which he invariably brought in with 
him. 

I am very sorry you have had such a bad day,” 
she said, sympathetically ; and then added, after a 
pause : “Mrs. Adnitt has been over here to-day. You 
remember Edward Dadley, don’t you, Gerald ? ” 

“ Yes, to be sure I do,” said the Rector ; “ and remem- 
ber that he behaved like a fool too. What about him ? ” 

“ Oh ! only Lucy Adnitt has been staying up in the 
north, and heard a good deal about him. He has been 
away traveling in America — shooting, I believe — for the 
last two years. He has just come back. He seems to 
have had a quarrel with his father about that cousin 
whom he wanted, him to marry, you know. She’s an 
heiress, and the two estates join. Edward Hadley went 
away because of it.” 

“ Just like old Hadley ! ” said Mr. Mainwaring, bit- 
terly. “ I always thought he was a grasping fellow. 
His grandfather was a tradesman, and I suppose it’s in 
the blood. The boy was well enough — rather weak, 
perhaps, but I was fond of him. He behaved like an 
ass at last, though — his father’s fault too, I dare say.” 

Mrs. Mainwaring, observing that her husband was 
not in a particularly urbane state of mind, seemed to 
think it well to change the conversation. 

“Mr. Leeper is going to leave Lowcote,” she re- 
marked, a little inconsequently. 


A SMTOH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 207 


“That’s a good riddance, anyway,” observed Mr. 
Mainwaring. “ We can do very well without him here.” 

“ He has got a large parish somewhere in the Black 
Country. The Adnitts are very anxious about the next 
presentation to the living at Lowcote.” 

“ WTiy, it’s not in their hands,” said the Rector. 

“ N o, but they think they might bring some influ- 
ence to bear on the Bishop. Mrs. Adnitt asked me 
about Mr. Jones.” 

“Oh ! Jones is a good creature enough,” said Mr. 
Mainwaring, a trifle contemptuously, stamping his feet 
again so that he showered mud liberally over the car- 
pet. “But the old squire has an uncommonly hot 
tongue, you know, and if he talked much to Jones, as 
he can talk when he is put out, the poor fellow would 
be frightened clean out of his wits. They want a 
stronger man than Jones at Lowcote. Between our- 
selves, Susan, dear old Adnitt is a bit of a tyrant.” 

Poor Mrs. Mainwaring was fated on that evening, 
much against her will, to say things by no means cal- 
culated to soothe her husband. She moved away from 
the fireplace, and busied herself with putting some stray 
papers tidily on the study-table. 

“ I find there has been some very unpleasant gossip 
going about Lowcote for some time,” she said, without 
looking up. “ I really hardly care to mention it, Ger- 
ald, but it annoyed me extremely.” 

“ Really ; why, what’s the matter there ? ” asked 
Mr. Mainwaring. He was getting rather impatient ; 
he wanted to go and have his hot bath. 

“ It seems that an extraordinary report has got 
abroad through Mr. Leeper saying something about 
Elizabeth.” , 


208 


MRS. LORIMER. 


“ Good gracious ! ” Mr. Mainwar^g exclaimed, thor- 
oughly roused now, and interested. “ What on earth 
can the man have to say about Elizabeth ? ” 

“ Oh ! it may all be untrue, you know, Gerald,” an- 
swered Mrs. Mainwaring, quickly. ‘‘Mrs. Adnitt said 
it was only gossip. She only wanted to know whether 
we knew anything about it. There seems,” she added, 
after a moment’s pause, “ to be a general impression 
th^t Mr. Leeper is very much — well, in fact, that he is 
in Iqve with Elizabeth.” 

‘‘ God bless my soul ! ” cried the Rector. “ Why, 
I’d as soon the child went and married a stake out of 
the hedge as that hard, lanky, bilious-looking fellow. 
What a piece of intolerable impertinence for him to 
think of such a thing ! ” 

“But it mayn’t be true, Gerald,” said Mrs. Main- 
waring, quite alarmed at the sudden storm she had 
raised. 

“ True ? ” answered the Rector, bitterly. “ Any- 
thing may be true nowadays. All the old landmarks 
are going. Only to-day I learned how much I was out 
of it all.” 

He felt again something of the distrust of the future, 
and contempt toward the present, that had troubled him 
on his lonely ride home. At that moment, it seemed to 
Mr. Mainwaring a not unfitting conclusion to the day’s 
work that Mr. Leeper — whom he most cordially dis- 
liked — should become his nephew, and eventually step 
into his shoes at Claybrooke. “ The old order ” was 
changing, he felt, more every day ; and he belonged to 
the old order. Mr. Mainwaring had a sense upon him, 
sometimes, that the world was walking right away from 
him, and that he was fighting sadly — at moments al- 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 209 


most half-heartedly — in a lost cause. The old-fashioned 
country gentleman, with all his old kindly, rather un- 
imaginative system of things, was slowly giving way, 
he feared, before the new age of so-called progress, and 
culture, and art. 

But the Rector was tired and stiff and chilly ; he 
could not meditate for any long space of time, under 
existing circumstances, even upon the doubtfulness of 
his own position in the general economy of things. He 
turned to his wife after a moment, and asked more sadly 
than angrily : 

“ Did he see her often, Susan ? ” 

“ No, no, not very often, I think, when she was here 
last,” answered Mrs. Mainwaring. 

She was trying hard to remember ; but she was a 
little confused and agitated, first by the vehemence and 
now by the sadness of her husband’s manner. She had 
a good memory for small events, but the meetings in 
question had taken place more than a year before, and 
it was slightly difficult to recall them accurately. 

“ He called here once — I think it was only once — 
when you were away in July ; and we met him again 
at the Adnitts’ afterward. There he talked a good deal 
to Elizabeth.” 

“ Oh ! well,” said the Rector, who found this piece 
of information decidedly reassuring, ‘‘that does not 
amount to very much. You contradicted it all to Mrs. 
Adnitt, I suppose?” 

“ Yes, I spoke very strongly,” answered Mrs. Main- 
waring. “ But you see, Gerald, for a long while I have 
not had Elizabeth’s full confidence.” 

The Rector was always disposed to advance pretty 
rapidly to the defense of his niece. He could hardly 


210 


MRS. LORIMER. 


believe that she would lend herself, in any way, to help 
work out an evil destiny for him. 

“ If I know anything of Elizabeth, Susan,” he said, 
quickly, “ she would soon let Mr. Leeper know he was 
making a considerable mistake, if he spoke to her on this 
subject.” 

“ I can not pretend to say what Elizabeth might do,’> 
answered Mrs. Mainwaring, rather stiffly. She was now 
and then somewhat jealous of her husband’s confidence 
in his niece. “ I only know that this report is annoying 
— most annoying to me.” 

‘‘Well,” said the Rector, influenced by three con- 
considerations — first, by the hopelessness of fighting 
against his fate, however unpleasant that fate might be ; 
secondly, by the sense that he and his wife were begin- 
ning to tread on rather dangerous ground ; and, thirdly, 
by a growing desire for his hot bath — “well, it is a 
nuisance ; but I dare say people will forget the whole 
thing in a few days. I dare say Mrs. Adnitt made the 
most of it. There, I really am so stiff I must go. Don’t 
vex yourself about it, Susie, any more. I’ll think it 
over, and we’ll talk about it some other time. Oh ! by- 
the-way,” he added, turning back for a moment, just as 
he was going out of the study-door, “ can’t we have din- 
ner a quarter of an hour sooner ? ” 


CHAPTER HI. 


“ L’opinion dispose de tout. Elle fait la beaut6, la justice, et le bon- 
heur, qui est le tout du monde.” 

Mks. Eeank Loeimer was not naturally of a pa- 
tient disposition ; and when the progress of events was 
not altogether as rapid as .she desired, she had a strong 
inclination to help it forward with a private shove. 
She thoroughly enjoyed the exercise of personal power 
which she was sensible of in thus hurrying conclusions ; 
and, having an ingenious mind, she generally found 
convincing arguments for proving that her interference 
was both necessary and legitimate. It is a great temp- 
tation to women of a certain temperament to play free- 
ly with the souls of their acquaintances, and to try to 
force -the hand of destiny concerning them. By care- 
fully ignoring the tricks they lose, and rather ostenta- 
tiously counting up those they take, these good ladies 
contrive generally to create, both in their own minds 
and in the minds of the onlookers, an impression of con- 
tinuous and remarkable success in the playing of their 
rather dangerous game. 

Mrs. Frank Lorimer had watched the course of 
Elizabeth and Fred Wharton’s friendship with sincere 
interest. It had supplied a certain element of refined 
excitement in her daily life which she relished keenly. 


212 


MRS. LORIMER. 


She had continually been aware of the situation she 
expected it would develop ; but though Wharton 
seemed to be growing somewhat preoccupied, and 
though Elizabeth, at times, was restless and capricious, 
Mrs. Frank had candidly to confess that the situation 
did not develop appreciably. She began to get a little 
impatient. It seemed to her they must have drunk the 
cup of friendship pretty well to the dregs ; and she was 
convinced that, in the case of a friendship between a 
man and a woman, love is at the bottom of the cup, 
just as surely as Truth is at the bottom of the prover- 
bial well. Mrs. Frank wanted something to happen ; 
she really quite yawned for a change of scene. 

No sooner had she fairly acknowledged her own 
sense of ennui in face of the present state of things, 
than the most excellent reasons for doing her best to 
alter that state of things began to crowd in upon her. 
For some time past she had been conscious that Eliza- 
beth’s intimacy with Fred Wharton had provoked a 
good deal of comment. People observed rather curi- 
ously upon the fact than whenever they called upon 
Elizabeth Lorimer, “ that young Mr. Wharton was sure 
to be there.” One or two people had asked Mrs. Frank 
point-blank whether there was “ anything in it ; ” and, 
when she answered in a vague and airy manner, had 
put up their eyebrows with an appearance of slight sur- 
prise. One excellent and well-intentioned old lady, 
who affected propriety as decidedly as she relished 
scandal, had intimated so undisguisedly that she consid- 
ered the connection a peculiar one, that Mrs. Frank felt 
a growing conviction regarding the absolute duty of 
prompt interference. 

Fanny Lorimer had decided long ago that Elizabeth 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 213 


must marry again. She had gone further, and decided 
that she must marry Fred Wharton ; she thought they 
would suit admirably, and be very happy together. 
Elizabeth’s superfluous enthusiasms would be nicely 
moderated by Wharton’s philosophic calm ; while he 
would be stimulated to greater earnestness of purpose 
by his wife’s strong and ardent sympathies. It was a 
charming arrangement undoubtedly ; and there was 
just that spice of malice about the conception of it, 
which made it specially attractive to Fanny Lorimer’s 
mind. She could not forgive Wharton’s apparent in- 
difference to love and marriage ; his perfect immunity 
from all those daily cares and vexations, which seem to 
be the necessary result of the close relationship of two 
imperfect human creatures. She felt it would be won- 
derfully refreshing to reduce him to the ordinary level ; 
to see him chained to the oar like the rest of us ; to 
hear him crying out that the shoe pinched, now and 
then ; to watch him hopping mildly about with clipped 
wings, instead of flying gayly hither and thither as 
fancy fired. She was sensible that Wharton clearly 
perceived the limitations and shortcomings of her own 
character ; and though she liked him very well— in a 
way — she never could forgive him this keenness of in- 
sight. It would be extremely exhilarating to get the 
better of him for once. 

She was just a little bit afraid of Elizabeth ; if the 
progress of events was to be hastened, and the hand of 
destiny to be forced, Fanny Lorimer felt she dared not 
attempt to attain her end by means- of Elizabeth. If 
she was to administer a shove to the situation, it must 
be administered through Fred Wharton. Yet, with all 
her audacity, she did not quite care to undertake the 


214 


MES. LOKIMER. 


business single-handed. She would like, if possible, to 
be backed by her husband’s approval. 

'Now unfortunately — or perhaps fortunately — Frank 
Lorimer hated diplomacy. He cultivated the very 
erroneous notion — so it appeared to his wife — that every 
one really knew his, or her, own business best. He 
strongly objected to interfering. He objected both to 
the trouble and to the responsibility of interfering ; but 
he had a deeper feeling on the subject, as well, and one 
which Fanny Lorimer was perhaps hardly capable of 
appreciating. He had a certain reverence for the mys- 
terious individuality of each human being, which made 
it seem to him almost sacrilegious to attempt to arrange 
or modify the future in any way for them. Frank 
Lorimer was not what is generally understood by the 
term “ a religious-minded man ” — far from it ; but he 
believed deeply in a kind and yet awful Providence, 
which shapes the life of every man, and he feared to 
run counter to the purposes of that tremendous power 
with any impertinent and short-sighted plans and fancies 
of his own. 

Fanny Lorimer’s pretty little head was full of 
schemes for the silencing of adverse criticism, the sub- 
duing of Fred Wharton, and the settling of all difficul- 
ties regarding Elizabeth by means of this marriage, one 
evening when she and her husband were — for a wonder 
— dining alone together. That afternoon she had been 
a good deal disturbed by the questions concerning her 
sister-in-law’s relations with Wharton, that had been 
put to her by different people. She had quite per- 
suaded herself that the present state of things could not 
be permitted to go on. She saw clearly that something 
really must be done at once ; but she wanted her hus- 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AKD WHITE. 215 


band’s sanction for the doing of it ; and she knew that, 
under the circumstances, it would be safer to try to ob- 
tain his sanction by a little management than to ask for 
it openly. 

The parlor- maid had just left the room, and Frank 
was refreshing himself with a peaceful cigarette before 
going up-stairs. He and his wife were sitting opposite 
to each other ; but there was a large flowering plant in 
the center of the table which acted as a pretty effectual 
screen between them. Fanny Lorimer, having a deli- 
cate mission to perform, regarded this as a not wholly 
unfortunate circumstance. 

‘‘ I am rather worried about Elizabeth, Frank,” she 
began quietly. 

« Why ? ” he inquired. “ I’m sure she was looking 
uncommonly well when I saw her the day before yes- 
terday.” 

“ Oh, yes ! perfectly well in health,” answered Fanny 
Lorimer, drawing a little pattern slowly on the white 
table-cloth with the blade of her silver dessert-knife. 
‘‘ She’s quite well, but she is moody and uncertain. I’m 
not surprised,” she added after a moment~as Frank did 
not answer — looking up with a charming air of candor 
which, owing to the intervening plant, was unfortu- 
nately lost upon her husband. “ I don’t wonder at it in 
the least ; any nice woman would be moody in her posi- 
tion. I never supposed she could exist for very long 
merely on blue china and ideas.” 

“ I wish you’d let the children come down to dessert, 
Fanny,” remarked Frank rather complainingly. ^‘I 
don’t see them all day because I’m out, and then in the 
evening I’m always told they’re in bed and asleep.” 

Well, if you insist on dining at a quarter to eight. 


216 


MKS. LOEIMER. 


Frank,” slie answered with some decision, ‘^you can’t 
expect to have the children at dessert. Imagine how 
wretchedly pasty Nini would look if she sat up till this 
hour ! l^ext to a lot of money, a good complexion is 
the best fortune in the world for a girl. Nini’s com- 
plexion sha’n’t be spoiled for want of sleep, anyway, 
I’m determined.” 

It’s a bore, all the same,” said Frank, turning his 
chair sideways so as to lean one elbow on the table, 
and stretching his legs out comfortably before him. 

This change of position on his part prevented the 
plant acting so effectually as a screen ; but Fanny Lori- 
mer was not wanting in courage, nor was she easily 
turned from any purpose that she had set her mind on. 

‘‘ I really almost wish sometimes,” she said, bending 
her head down, while she carefully elaborated the pat- 
tern on the table-cloth — “ I really do quite wish some- 
times that Elizabeth would marry again.” 

Frank Lorimer glanced up quickly, with a touch of 
displeasure on his pleasant, good-looking face. 

“ It is hardly two years since Robert died, Fanny,” 
he said. ‘‘It would be rather soon, don’t you think?” 

“ Oh ! pray don’t imagine I like second marriages,” 
she said, looking up too, and speaking rapidly. “You 
know perfectly well, Frank, that I think them abso- 
lutely detestable — only allowed for the hardness of our 
hearts, you know. But then Elizabeth has got no chil- 
dren, you see, and no near relations except ourselves 
and those tiresome, narrow-minded, old Mainwarings.” 

She paused a moment, and then added with a certain 
touch of unwillingness, which was very becoming : 

“ And Elizabeth is rather peculiar, too ; she is not 
quite careful enough ; she makes people talk about her. 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 217 

Really, you know, Frank, your friend Mr. Wharton is 
always there ; and of course people can’t help observing 
it.” 

Frank Lorimer was silent. The conversation was 
thoroughly distasteful to him. He felt a little irritated 
with his charming wife ; and yet, in fairness, he had to 
admit that there might be a good deal of truth in what 
she said. 

Fanny Lorimer added a few flourishes to her pattern 
on the table-cloth. She wanted her last remarks to 
have time to sink well down into her husband’s mind. 

“ Do you want Fred to marry her, then ? ” asked 
Frank, rather sharply, at last. He did not look, some- 
how, as if he relished the idea at all. 

‘‘ Oh ! I don’t know,” she answered, with a delicate 
shrug of her shoulders. “It wouldn’t be much use 
wanting Mr. Wharton to marry anybody, you know. 
He likes to drift. He hates taking steps ; proposing to 
Elizabeth would be taking a great step, I fancy. But 
still his being there so much is annoying. It leads to 
all sorts of misconceptions. It really is rather compro- 
mising for Elizabeth, you know.” 

Fanny Lorimer said the last few words with a de- 
lightful little air of sorrowful conviction. 

This was very unpleasant, Frank thought, if it 
really was true. Wharton had been a great deal at 
Elizabeth’s lately, he knew ; therefore he was afraid 
it might be true. Frank Lorimer disliked unpleasant 
things immensely ; he always tried to avoid any length- 
ened discussion of them. He got up hastily, knocking 
the long ash of his cigarette off on to the carpet. This 
caused Fanny Lorimer an instant of acute misery ; but 
she dominated her domestic sensations with heroic forti- 
10 


218 


MRS. LOEIMER. 


tude. The carpet must be sacrificed, she felt, to the 
situation. 

‘‘If it’s really compromising, some one ought to tell 
him so,” Frank said. 

“ Do you mean that, really, Frank ? ” asked his wife, 
getting up too, and letting the handle of her dessert- 
knife fall with a gentle thud upon the table-cloth. 

“ Oh ! I don’t know,” he answered, testily. “ For 
goodness’ sake, Fanny, let the subject alone, and we’ll go 
up -stairs.” 

Fanny Lorimer was absolutely delightful during the 
rest of the evening. Her husband imagined she was 
prettily repentant for having introduced disagreeable 
subjects of conversation after dinner ; and thought it 
very nice that she should have such a tender conscience 
where his comfort was concerned. One really has a 
great respect for the Serpent sometimes. He must 
have been wonderfully subtle to have beguiled Eve ; 
or else the first woman must have been curiously less 
acute than her daughters of the last few centuries ! 
Frank Lorimer was beautifully innocent of his wife’s 
intentions ; and Fanny Lorimer was radiant, for she 
saw a clear path before her. 

Fortune is said to favor the brave. Fortune cer- 
tainly in this case favored Mrs. Frank Lorimer. In the 
usual course of events she did not often find herself 
alone with Mr. Wharton ; but it so happened that, 
within a week after the above conversation, she had an 
excellent opportunity for administering just that little 
impetus to the forward movement of events that she 
had so earnestly coveted. 

She called one afternoon at her sister-in-law’s, wish- 
ing to make some arrangement regarding the entertain- 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 219 


ing of one or two friends. Martha, in answer to her 
inquiries, announced that Elizabeth was not at home ; 
she would not be in for half an hour or so. But, 
Martha added, Mr. Wharton, who was also anxious to 
see her mistress, was awaiting her return up-stairs. 
Here, then, was Fanny Lorimer’s opportunity ; all the 
circumstances perfectly arranged, the path smoothed 
for her, and — supposing Elizabeth did not return sooner 
than she was expected to — the most admirable occasion 
for her to express her sisterly fears to Fred Wharton. 
Fanny Lorimer, of course, was glad ; and yet she could 
not disguise from herself that she felt a little nervous. 
However, after a moment’s indecision, she concluded 
that she could never respect herself again if she gave 
way to vague alarms, and retired from the performance 
of this, her obvious duty. She, too, would wait for 
Elizabeth’s return. 

I know my way ; you need not trouble to come 
up with me,” she said graciously to Martha. Then she 
walked quietly up-stairs, and went, unannounced, into 
the drawing-room. 

Fred Wharton was beguiling the time, during which 
he waited for his fair hostess, by playing. The piano 
had been placed in the back drawing-room, and was in 
a position which, even had he been less absorbed in his 
present occupation, would have prevented his seeing 
Mrs. Frank as she came into the room. She, on her 
part, wanted a few minutes for quiet reflection ; she 
wanted to arrange the manner of her attack. She felt 
that some people might think her just a trifle mean for 
taking advantage of Wharton’s musical enthusiasm in 
this way ; but the end, surely, might very well justify 
the means. She settled herself in a comfortable corner 


220 


¥ES. LOEIMER. 


and waited patiently for tlie music to cease before she 
should speak. The portiere between the two rooms 
was partly drawn aside, and by leaning a little forward 
Mrs. Frank could just see Wharton as he sat at the 
piano. 

As we have already noted, Wharton’s nature always 
seemed to grow deeper and more earnest when he was 
playing. On this occasion, owing perhaps to certain 
new feelings which were beginning to stir within him, 
perhaps only to the fact that he believed himself to be 
alone and unobserved, he seemed to be speaking the 
very depths of his being out in the music. 

Fortunately, Fanny Lorimer’s nature was not easily 
influenced by outbursts of feeling, otherwise she might 
easily have forgotten her purpose while listening to 
Wharton’s stormy playing, and have lost herself on an 
ocean of fancy and of wild desire for some fair and 
unknown good. Fanny Lorimer had a small head, but 
she contrived never to lose it ; consequently, she just 
sat still and matured her little plans, with a fine indif- 
ference to her surroundings. 

Suddenly Wharton left off abruptly in the middle 
of a tempestuous -passage, and, after playing a few 
chords softly, fell to humming the melancholy song 
that had so overset Elizabeth the first time she heard 
it. He sang the words of the last verse out loud, with 
a certain quiet suggestion of regret and sorrow that 
almost startled Mrs. Frank. She had not a very deli- 
cate sense of honor, but there was a touch of self -reve- 
lation in Wharton’s singing, which seemed to her clearly 
not intended for unsympathetic ears. It made her un- 
comfortable ; she did not like to listen any longer ; also, 
she began to be afraid that Elizabeth might come back. 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 221 


and tliat her opportunity would be lost. She managed 
to get up with a great rustling of skirts, half overset 
her chair, and save it hastily from actually falling, with 
a rapid movement and sharp little exclamation, which 
effectually attracted Wharton’s attention. 

He turned round quickly, expecting to see Elizabeth ; 
and his face did not take an altogether agreeable ex- 
pression when he perceived who it was that had inter- 
rupted him. 

“ Ah ! my dear Mr. Wharton, forgive me ! ” cried 
Mrs. Frank, coming toward him with an outstretched 
hand and one of her peculiarly brilliant smiles. “ I am 
so accustomed to running in and out of this house, with- 
out any parade of servants announcing me, that I came 
in quietly just now, and I’m afraid I have taken you by 
surprise. I really could not interrupt you at first, you 
were playing so deliciously. That tiresome chair nearly 
fell over. Ah ! ” she added, advancing toward the 
piano, “ what lovely flowers ! ” 

On the top of the piano lay a great bunch of white 
roses, stephanotis, and lilies-of -the- valley. Mrs. Frank 
put out her hand, picked up the bouquet, and almost 
buried her pretty face among the clustering blossoms. 

“ Ah ! how perfectly delicious they are ! ” she said. 
“Are they destined for my fortunate sister-in-law?” 

“Mrs. Lorimer is very fond of white flowers,” said 
Wharton, rather loftily. 

He had an uncomfortable sense of being taken at a 
disadvantage somehow. He had been feeling a little 
excited ; and just because he so very seldom felt really 
excited he had a difficulty in regaining his usual calm 
manner, getting his social armor on again, and meeting 
Mrs. Frank with weapons as sharp, and yet as dainty, 


222 


MRS. LORIMER. 


as her own, in the battle-field of ordinary conversation. 
He had an absurd misgiving that something unpleasant 
was impending, and that he would not find himself 
equal to the occasion. 

‘‘ Oh ! they are perfectly delicious,” said Mrs. Frank, 
smelling the flowers again. ‘‘ Have you any idea, Mr. 
Wharton, when Elizabeth will be in ? ” 

She will be in in time for tea, I suppose,” answered 
Wharton. 

He was rather offended with Mrs. Frank Lorimer ; 
and there was something uncomfortable, to his think- 
ing, in the way she seemed to take for granted that he 
knew all about Elizabeth’s movements. 

‘‘ That won’t be just yet,” said Mrs. Frank. Then 
she added, looking up at him with an air of admirable 
candor, “ I am very glad we have met here, Mr. Whar- 
ton, for I really wanted to see you very much.” 

Wharton did not feel inclined to make a pretty 
speech, so he merely bowed his acknowledgments of her 
complimentary desires. A silent bow from a person 
one knows very well is hardly an encouraging thing ; 
but Mrs. Frank was apparently by no means abashed. 

“ It may sound very strange,” she continued, ‘‘ but I 
wanted to say something to you about my sister-in-law. 
It may seem unusual, but, then, you know her so very 
well. I think you will understand my motives.” 

Wharton was standing near the piano, with his back 
to the window ; Mrs. Frank was opposite to him, with 
the light falling full upon her. Somehow he mistrusted 
the expression of her innocent little face ; and he dis- 
liked her taking possession of his offering of white 
flowers, and holding them so composedly in her hand 
while she talked to him. Wharton had a fanciful feel- 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WinTE. 


223 


ing upon him that she would keep those flowers, and 
that he should never give them to Elizabeth, after all. 

There was a pause. Fanny Lorimer began arrang- 
ing her bonnet-strings with one hand. This occasioned 
her to turn her head a little on one side, so that she no 
longer looked her companion full in the face. 

“ My sister-in-law’s position is such a peculiar one,” 
she went on, after a minute or two. “ She is so young, 
and so unusually handsome ; and of course people ob- 
serve her a good deal, and talk about her. People will 
say odious unpleasant things about every one, and of 
course she doesn’t escape. I really do wish sometimes, 
Mr. Wharton, you know, that Elizabeth would be just 
a little more careful and conventional.” 

Wharton had not the smallest desire to discuss 
Elizabeth thus. 

“ Mrs. Lorimer is perfectly capable of taking care 
of her own reputation, I should imagine,” he said, 
stiffly. 

“ Ah ! no, there you’re mistaken,” answered Mrs. 
Frank, quickly ; and there was something so entirely 
straightforward and genuine in her manner as she 
spoke, that Wharton felt considerably mollified toward 
her. “ It is stupid, cold-hearted, worldly-minded creat- 
ures like me who are perfectly capable of taking care 
of their own reputations. Elizabeth really is too sim- 
ple, and honest, and noble- hearted, to think what people 
will say about her when she does this or that. She is 
too innocent ; and the consequence is that she lands 
herself in all manner of bothers. She has ideas, you 
know, about life, and ideas are always fatal. The world 
seems to me,” added Mrs. Frank, giving a final little pat 
to her bonnet-strings and looking straight in front of 


224 : 


MRS. LORBIER. 


her abstractedly — ‘Hhe world seems to me to be divided 
into clever people with ideas and stupid people without 
them ; and the latter have to spend three j)arts of their 
time in fishing the former out of their difficulties. I 
need not say I belong to the stupid section, and ” — she 
looked up at Wharton suddenly — am absolutely on 
thorns about my sister-in-law just now.” 

“ Really, indeed,” said Wharton, coldly ; why ? ” 

Mrs. Frank Lorimer stepped aside into the shadow of 
the heavy window-curtains. She was going to play her 
highest card, and it made her feel a little nervous ; she 
was afraid of appearing too much interested or excited. 
Wharton, she felt sure, was watching her carefully. 
She knew that with some men what she was about to 
say would have exactly the contrary effect to that which 
she desired to produce ; but she trusted to an almost 
quixotic strain of honor which she had observed once or 
twice in Wharton. He would rather do anything than 
lose the least jot or tittle of his self-respect. 

“ I will tell you why,” she said, smelling the flowers 
again ; and I shall have to say something extremely 
disagreeable. I shall offend your taste horribly. I 
really doubt whether you will ever forgive me ; but I 
must consider Elizabeth, you know.” 

She paused — it really was an odious thing to say. 
She wondered what W^harton would do — she wondered 
what Frank would think ; fortunately, he would only 
hear her version of the story ; Wharton would be very 
certain not to mention it ! 

“ In point of fact, then, you come here too often, 
Mr. Wharton,” she said. 

There are moments when it is quite impossible to 
maintain an appearance of philosophic calm. W^harton 


A SKETCH m BLACK" AHD WHITE. 225 

was pretty well master of himself on most occasions ; 
but just now he could not manage to conceal his feel- 
ings. He blushed violently, and that added most mate- 
rially to his sense of anger and wretchedness. 

Mrs. Frank Lorimer did not give him time to speak. 

“ Yes,” she said, quickly, looking at him with an air 
of becoming distraction, and stretching out her hands 
— flowers and all — with a charmingly appealing gesture. 

It is a horrible thing to say to you. You can never 
forgive me. I have outraged your taste, I know, and 
entirely disgusted you. But then people will talk, and 
there is nobody to tell you but me. Speaking is forced 
upon me — I really can not help myself.” 

This is extremely painful,” said Wharton. “ I am 
more than sorry that I should have caused you any an- 
noyance, or in any way — really it is too unpleasant,” he 
added, angrily, turning away. 

“Pray, pray remember,” cried Mrs. Frank, hastily, 
coming a step nearer to him, and speaking imploringly 

«« pray remember that Elizabeth knows nothing of all 

tills — ^is absolutely ignorant of it. She positively knows 
nothing of it.” 

Wharton stood looking down. Perhaps he had never 
felt so thoroughly uncomfortable in all his life before. 
He had been trying delicate and philosophic experiments 
as he supposed ; and the world at large was accusing 
him, all the while, of an ordinary stupid bit of indis- 
cretion. The position seemed to him intolerably vulgar. 
He felt enraged with himself, enraged with Fanny 
Lorimer, enraged with the whole universe. He had got 
entangled — yes, that was what people were saying — 
with Mrs. Lorimer. He could fancy the way this and 
that and the other person talked him over, and laughed. 


226 


MRS. LORIMER. 


as they each added their little quota of gossip to the 
heap. And he had always kept himself so free of this 
sort of thing. Oh, it really was too odious ! Heavens 
and earth, what a fool he had been, and what a wretch- 
edly commonplace scrape he had got himself into ! 

Just then Elizabeth came in from her walk. Mrs. 
Frank and Wharton heard her shut the front door, and 
come lightly and quickly up the stairs. They stood to- 
gether, in the shady back drawing-room, with its soft 
dusky colors and quaint furniture, feeling like two sud- 
denly discovered conspirators. 


CHAPTER IV. 


“ Looking up, 1 saw it was a starling hung in a little cage. — ‘ I can’t 
get out, I can’t get out,’ said the starling.” 

Elizabeth certainly looked very handsome as she 
came into the room. She still wore nothing hut black ; 
but within the last few months she had taken to dress- 
ing in a rather superb manner. This afternoon she had 
been paying some visits, and was arrayed in a gown of 
some rich material, loaded with shimmering jet trim- 
mings, which glanced and glittered as she moved. Her 
mantle — ^fitting tightly over the shoulders and showing 
the lines of the bust — matched her gown, and was bor- 
dered with deep, soft, black fur. She had on a little 
fluffy French bonnet, tying with broad strings under 
the chin — the extreme becomingness of which had 
thrown Fanny Lorimer into a small ecstasy of envy and 
admiration the first time she saw it. Perhaps Eliza- 
beth’s style of dress was more suitable to a woman of 
forty than to a girl of barely four-and-twenty ; but it 
had the effect of making her look younger, and not 
older, than her real age. 

Mrs. Frank had a gift for receiving rapid impres- 
sions. She glanced up at her sister-in-law as she entered 
the room, and said to herself : 

Certainly Elizabeth is wonderfully distinguished- 
looking.” 


228 


MRS. LORIMER. 


Wharton glanced up at her too. He was sensible of 
a sharp feeling of longing and regret. He was not at 
all under the impression that he was what is technically 
called in love ” with Elizabeth Lorimer — he was ut- 
terly uncertain about the future — but he knew that 
their pleasant friendship was at an end, anyway. Mrs. 
Frank had just given it its coup de grace. Nothing, ab- 
solutely nothing, could put things back on their old 
easy footing again. 

Wharton had nothing to say ; he stood silent, feel- 
ing contemptibly wretched. Fanny Lorimer was the 
first to regain her presence of mind, and moved forward 
to meet her sister-in-law with a rather unnecessarily 
brilliant smile. 

Elizabeth, quite unconscious of all the plots against 
her peace, took Mrs. Frank’s hand, and then, turning to 
Wharton, said cordially : 

“ How nice of you both to wait for me ! What de- 
licious flowers, Fanny ! where did you get them ? — Oh ! 
you’ve been playing,” she added, turning again to Whar- 
ton ; have you brought that thing of Schumann’s you 
promised me ? Come into the other room and let us 
have some tea, and then you shall play it to me. I 
really want refreshment ; I have been paying such a lot 
of tiresome visits.” 

Elizabeth began unfastening her mantle as she spoke. 
She stood there looking very sweet and gracious in her 
shimmering dress. 

“ I’m afraid I can’t stay now,” said Wharton hastily, 
and — he knew it only too well — awkwardly, without 
looking at her. 

Elizabeth opened her eyes rather wide with surprise, 
and paused, holding the half -unfastened fronts of her 


A.* SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 229 

mantle in either hand. She was arrested by something 
unusual in Wharton’s manner ; it was so unlike him to 
refuse to do anything that she asked him to do. 

“ I ought really to have gone before,”' said he again. 
And then added vindictively, ‘‘ I should have gone be- 
fore, but that I have been so enchained with Mrs. Frank 
Lorimer’s delightful conversation.” 

Fanny Lorimer winced a little ; this was the form 
his resentment was going to take, then ! 

I am afraid I must go,” repeated Wharton, look- 
ing at Elizabeth almost sadly. 

‘‘ How very odd ! ” she said, with a sudden sense of 
chill and discomfort. ‘‘You have waited for me till 
now, and then, directly I come in, you rush away in 
this strange fashion.” 

Elizabeth went on unfastening her mantle. 

“ Pray don’t let us detain you,” she added rather stiffly. 

“You can’t know how sorry I am that I am obliged 
to go, Mrs. Lorimer,” said Wharton impetuously and 
rather incoherently. 

But he offered no further explanation, and Elizabeth 
shook hands with him coldly. She was annoyed ; she 
could not understand it all. 

Fanny Lorimer had turned away, and was fidgeting 
with some loose music on the piano. She was in a small 
fever of vexation. Wharton seemed to her to be be- 
having with a wretched want of presence of mind. 
What would be the upshot of it ? Had she, after all, 
made a great mistake ? 

There was a pause. Fanny Lorimer heard Wharton 
shut the door ; and then as Elizabeth flung down her 
mantle, with a rustle of silk and clash of beads, she 
turned round. 


230 


MRS. LORIMER. 


“ What is the matter with him, Fanny ? ” said Eliza- 
beth hastily. She looked disturbed and bewildered. 

‘‘ Oh ! my dear, I suppose he has moods, and fads, 
and fancies, like the rest of us,” answered Mrs. Frank, 
coming forward and shrugging her shoulders with a 
touch of irritation. “ Pray don’t require reasons from 
me for the eccentric doings of the young men of our 
acquaintance, for I own myself quite incapable, as a 
rule, of discovering any. The ways of man are utterly 
incomprehensible, in my humble opinion.” 

Fanny Lorimer certainly felt better when she had 
delivered herself of this attack on mankind in general. 
If circumstances will not allow of your actually injuring 
an obnoxious individual, there is always a distinct de- 
gree of comfort to be derived from throwing a few 
stones at the whole race. Fanny Lorimer could have 
found it in her heart to run red-hot bodkins into Whar- 
ton at this moment ; but, as there are prejudices against 
such practical expressions of personal feeling in the pres- 
ent day, she refreshed herself with a little general abuse 
of his sex. Then she looked up quite serenely at Eliza- 
beth, and said : 

By-the-way, I believe he brought these flowers for 
you, Elizabeth. I picked them up while we were talk- 
ing ; and then, either I forgot to give them back to 
him, or he forgot to ask for them ; anyway, here they 
are.” 

Elizabeth glanced at the flowers for a moment, as 
Mrs. Frank held them out to her. 

“ I think you had better keep them,” she said. “ They 
seem to belong to you more than to me. And they are 
really too sweet, they make the room quite oppressive. 
No, I don’t want them,” she added. 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 231 


Fred Wharton was in a very unenviable state of 
mind as he left Mrs. Lorimer’s house and walked slowly 
home toward Chelsea. He had a conviction that some 
of the pleasantest days of his life were over for ever. He 
regi-etted the past ; he was acutely uncomfortable in the 
present ; and he distrusted the future. It was a miser- 
able predicament for a young man, who had been wont 
to pride himself on his perfect serenity of mind and on 
the delightful security of his position, to find himself in. 

Wharton meditated upon the situation all that even- 
ing ; but, look at it which way he might, there was a 
lion in the path. On every side he seemed beset with 
dangers and difficulties. He felt he could not meet Eliz- 
abeth again until he knew his own mind and had decided 
on some positive plan of action. On the other hand, it 
was almost impossible to remain in London without 
meeting her. And she, at least, had not done him any 
wrong ; how could he neglect and avoid her, without 
giving the slightest reason for his conduct ? Finally, 
he decided on the safe but unheroic course of running 
away. He felt he must have time to think the matter 
calmly out ; he entirely refused to be hurried toward 
any premature conclusion. So next morning he tele- 
graphed to a bachelor friend in Sussex, who had a 
delightful house, and a delightful habit of letting his 
guests do very much what they pleased, without making 
any too strenuous efforts at entertaining them. Whar- 
ton telegraphed to this convenient individual, saying 
that he was out of sorts and wanted a rest ; ” and re- 
ceiving a prompt reply from Adolphus Carr — the friend 
in question — to the effect that he would be entirely wel- 
come, he set off without further delay. 

He had cherished a sort of hope that once away from 


232 


ME>S. LOEIMER. 

London, and from the observant eyes of his friends and 
acquaintances, he should find his difiiculties melt away. 
He had a sort of hope that the windy March weather, 
the great stretches of turf-clad down, with that delicate 
strip of silver sea on the southern horizon, would act as 
a moral tonic upon him, and fill him with clear and dis- 
tinct desires and resolutions. But he was disappointed. 
Nature seemed curiously indifferent to the perturbations 
and distresses of this pleasant young gentleman, with 
his philosophic and imaginative temperament, his ques- 
tionings and uncertainties, and his charmingly furnished 
rooms down in Chelsea. She was altogether too busy 
with storm and sunshine, and the mysterious processes 
of birth, and growth, and failure, and death, and decay, 
to have any spare time to read him private lessons of 
fortitude or wisdom. She is no respecter of persons, 
indeed, and seems to care no more tenderly for the needs 
of the most talented of her human children, than for the 
grass and daisies they thoughtlessly crush under their 
feet. 

Perhaps Wharton looked at the position with un- 
necessary seriousness ; but he had always been so en- 
gaged in watching other people that he had, so far, done 
very little living on his own account. As Mrs. Frank 
said, he hated taking steps ; and he doubly hated being 
forced by outside opinion to take them. If only things 
had been left alone, Wharton thought, they would have 
arranged themselves ; but to propose to Elizabeth Lori- 
mer because certain busybodies chose to say that he 
ought to do so, seemed to him utterly monstrous. All 
his old objections to marrying came upon him with 
overwhelming force. He liked Elizabeth Lorimer im- 
mensely ; liked her better, he owned to himself, than he 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 233 


had ever liked any woman before ; but then be liked so 
many other things as well — bis friends, bis freedom, bis 
art. If be only liked Elizabeth either rather more or 
rather less, it seemed to him that be should know better 
what to do. As it was, be turned the matter this way 
and that, over and over again, and found himself as far 
from a decision as ever. 

Wharton’s very mental acuteness made him cow- 
ardly and uncertain. The possible results of every 
plan of action fairly frightened him. He had no in- 
stinct to fall back upon ; it was all a weighing, and 
balancing, and measuring of probabilities, and possibili- 
ties, and desirabilities, without any strong and compel- 
ling current of feeling to draw or drive him in any par- 
ticular direction. His mental compass seemed to be 
depolarized ; the needle no longer swung true. He 
wanted supremely to do what was right and honorable ; 
but, for the life of him, he could not see exactly which 
course right and honor commanded him to adopt. 

A simpler-minded man, like Mr. Mainwaring, or — in 
a lesser degree — like Frank Lorimer, would have asked 
himself one or two straightforward questions and abided 
by the result. Had he really compromised the young 
lady, Frank would have asked himselfj and if so what 
must he do ? Obviously give her an opportunity of 
refusing him, to put the matter in a modest form. And 
if she accepted him? — Well, after all, whether he 
wanted to marry or not, chance would have provided 
him with a very charming wife ; he must be thankful, 
and put his predilections for celibacy in his pocket. 

But Fred Wharton could not approach the matter 
in this direct way. He had lost his sense of distinct 
light and shade, so to speak, in his observation of local 


234 : 


MRS. LORIMER. 


color. He objected to talking about right and wi’ong ; 
right and wrong, to his seeing, were modified and 
blended by a thousand side-lights and accidents of po- 
sition, which made it imjDOSsible fairly to disentangle 
them'. He was so anxious to see Truth from every 
point of view, that he spent all his time in revolving 
round and round her, changing his standing-ground 
continually ; instead — like a practical man — of clutch- 
ing boldly at the nearest fold of her fiowing garments, 
and holding on to that determinedly. In short, like 
nearly all highly sensitive and imaginative persons, 
Wharton, having for a moment lost his mental balance, 
was disposed entirely to mistake the relative value of 
things ; and, while he was engaged in sedulously strain- 
ing at a gnat, ran great risk of swallowing a whole 
caravan of camels. 

Behind all these other feelings, there lingered an 
absurd but haunting idea that in marrying Elizabeth 
he would be spoiling a great artistic effect. He did 
not like to think of her settling down and assuming the 
rdle of an ordinary respectable commonplace matron. 
It seemed to him that she would lose a great deal of 
her charm under those circumstances. He had accepted 
Mrs. Frank’s notion concerning Elizabeth, as has al- 
ready been mentioned. He had been waiting and look- 
ing out for a long time for a dramatic denoiXment ; 
and hs could not help feeling that Elizabeth would be 
somewhat of a fraud if the denoiXment did not come 
off. She seemed to him cut out for some striking, per- 
haps tragic, situation ; and he thought it would cer- 
tainly be a loss to have her sink down to the usual dead 
level of womanhood. On the other hand, there would 
be something rather distracting about a wife who might 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 235 


develop suddenly any day and surprise you immensely. 
It seemed to Wharton a little like undertaking a Jack- 
in-the-box with an insecure fastening, and he could not 
imagine any possession less conducive to domestic peace 
and security. 

These and a dozen more puzzling thoughts occurred 
to Wharton, as he wandered over the short-cropped turf 
of the chalk downs in the blustering March weather. 
At last, when nearly three weeks had passed away, he 
began to be aware that his position and attitude of 
mind were rapidly becoming extremely ludicrous. This 
state of things could not go on for ever. Adolphus 
Carr was expecting a house full of people, and Wharton 
was sensible that he was just a little in the way. As 
both reason and desire refused to lead him, he deter- 
mined to fall back on what undevout persons call 
“ chance,” and devout ones call Providence. He would 
go back to London ; perhaps some unlooked-for con- 
tingency — perhaps the mere sight of Elizabeth — might 
make the way clear. Wharton did not wish to have too 
good a reason for laughing at himself ; and he felt that 
his flight and long-continued state of uncertainty had 
an element of absurdity in them — too, he remembered 
some drawing engagements that he could no longer 
neglect. He must hope that something would turn up.” 

The rooms overlooking the river presented a very 
inviting appearance, after the chilly desolate country 
shivering in the cool embraces of early spring. Whar- 
ton’s spirits rose. Something certainly, he thought, 
would turn up to help him out of his difficulties. Mean- 
while events had been taking place in London which 
had considerably changed the aspect of Elizabeth Lori- 
mer’s affairs. 


CHAPTER y. 


“ Comment, disaient-ils, 

Enchanter les belles 
Sans philtres subtils ? ” 

There comes a moment, in the history of the life 
of each of the saints, when Satan, baffled at all other 
points, makes one last and desperate assault upon the 
soul through the medium of the senses. St. Anthony 
could not escape from this trial in the burning solitude 
of the Egyptian desert, nor St. Francis amid the spot- 
less purity of the Alpine snows, nor St. Benedict in his 
cave among the cruel rocks and briers. Hor could poor 
Mr. Leeper escape it either, though he had a yellowish 
complexion and sparse black beard ; and though he 
lived in this enlightened nineteenth century, when, as 
we know, ‘Hhe sea of faith ” is no longer “ at the full,” 
and we only listen — some sadly and some gladly — to 
‘Hts melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,” retreating 
‘‘down the vast ed^es,” and “naked shingles of the 
world.” 

Yfithout asserting that Mr. Leeper, at this or any 
other stage of his career, deserved the honors of can- 
onization, we must allow that, having taken no small 
pains to form himself upon the orthodox models, he 
had a perfect right to suffer all the orthodox tempta- 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 237 


lions. It may be added that tbe natural man dies very 
hard in each one of us ; perhaps fortunately, for if it 
had not always been so — if the said natural man had 
not always been blessed with a considerable amount of 
vitality — there is no saying in how many more wonder- 
ful vagaries the human race might not have already in- 
dulged, or how much further away we might not have 
wandered, by this time, from our great mother ^Nature, 
and from the simple foundations of our humanity. 

During the year and more that had passed since 
Elizabeth Lorimer left Claybrooke, Mr. Keeper had by 
no means ceased to think of the stately, gray-eyed 
young lady with whom — from many points of few — a 
nearer connection appeared so desirable. Mr. Keeper’s 
mind was of a very tenacious order. When he had 
once conceived an idea, it was pretty sure eventually to 
influence his action in some direct and practical way. 
His was not a poetical mind, in which a thousand-and- 
one charming and moving possibilities can float and 
float, like soft white clouds in a summer sky — produc- 
ing delicious effects of light and shade, but never pre- 
cipitating themselves upon the sleepy land below in the 
positive, and often inconvenient, form of rain. 

Among the distractions and annoyances of his parish 
work, during the constant struggle to communicate to 
his somewhat supine brother clergy a touch of his own 
superabundant enthusiasm, Mr. Keeper was often visited 
by thoughts of Elizabeth. His state of mind may be 
regarded from two points of view during this period — 
of this fact he was quite sensible himself, and, for some 
cause, it troubled him. The social and material advan- 
tages which a marriage with Elizabeth offered him 
seemed to sink more and more out of sight ; while the 


238 


MKS. LORIMEE. 


attractive power of her beauty and charm of her man- 
ner waxed stronger and stronger. Memory played 
strange tricks upon Mr. Leeper. Little delicate flowers 
began to blossom in the rather neglected and arid 
region of his heart. He knew this, and it irritated him. 
Should he say that he was being tempted to fall away 
from the great work that he had proposed to himself — 
was he indeed disposed to desert the Cause for love of 
one of the fair daughters of men ? Or was he merely 1 
turning the more gentle and human side of his charac- j 
ter, long hidden under hard deposits of ecclesiastical j 
and social theory, toward the gracious sunlight ? Mr. j 
Leeper could not tell ; but he knew that, for some ! 
strange reason, he would feel happier if he could be j 
certain that he contemplated marriage in cold blood — | 

if he could be sure that he wished to marry for the 
sake of the Cause rather than for the sake of the 
woman ! 

He' was a really devout man. He believed that all 
his life was ordered for him. He depended very much 
on the leading of circumstances, not perceiving that 
circumstances, in the case of a strong nature, have a 
curious tendency to lead in the direction in which that 
nature desires to go. Mr. Leeper determined to wait, to 
give the matter time. He did not say — as Wharton said 
later in a somewhat analogous position — that ‘‘some- 
thing would turn up ; ” he held that if it was to be, the 
way would be made clear by a higher power. So month 
after month had passed by, till, at last, quite unexpect- 
edly, Mr. Leeper was offered a large parish in the ac- 
tive, crowded manufacturing district which lies in the 
north of Midlandshire. 

Two years before he would have clutched at the 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 239 


offer, simply because it promised to widen bis sphere of 
action, to put him into a prominent position, and give 
him an opportunity of testing the working capacity of 
many of those theories which he so ardently cherished. 
Now another thought influenced him. He had waited 
patiently ; this might be the looked-for leading of cir- 
cumstance. He would have more to offer Elizabeth ; 
her money and position would be more than ever desir- 
able for him ; and the prospect of wide influence and of 
self-devotion to a great practical good might be some- 
what of a bait with which to tempt her. Alas, alas ! Mr. 
Leeper’s eye was no longer single. He clung to the 
idea of a leading ; and yet he felt bitter against him- 
self. Was it possible that, like the church of Ephesus, 
he had left his first love ? 

When the news of Mr. Leeper’s preferment got 
abroad, poor Mrs. Harbage naturally made a last and 
desperate attempt to secure her eldest daughter’s future. 
Mr. Harbage, like Curtius of old, was compelled to leap 
into the gulf, and to find out clearly what his brother 
clergyman’s state of mind and intentions might be. 
Unfortunately, Mr. Harbage’s self-sacrifice was not' 
crowned with the same success as that of the ancient 
Roman. Mr. Leeper intimated that such few affections 
as he was unwillingly sensible of possessing were alto- 
gether engaged elsewhere ; and the gulf seemed to 
yawn, deeper and wider than ever, between the eldest 
Miss Harbage and matrimony. 

Led by that vindictive instinct, which so often ani- 
mates the heart of an affectionate mother when one of 
her children appears to be slighted, Mrs. Harbage im- 
mediately did her best to discover who was committing 
the unparalleled atrocity of engrossing Mr. Leeper’s af- 


240 


MES. LOEIMER. 


fections. The memory of former disappointments nat- 
urally beset her, and she instinctively fixed on Elizabeth 
Lorimer as the culprit. Mrs. Harbage loved to pro- 
claim, if not her woes, at least the sins of others, which 
might in some measure be supposed to produce those 
woes. And so the rumor concerning Mr. Leeper and 
Mrs. Lorimer was set afloat, which eventually, as we 
have already seen, reached Claybrooke Rectory, and 
caused a very distinct amount of annoyance to its in- 
mates. 

Mr. Leeper could not actually contradict the rumor ; 
nay, he was disposed to accept it as a part of the ex- 
pected leading. He determined that — as soon as the 
necessary formalities, regarding the leaving of his old 
parish and taking possession of his new one, had been 
accomplished — he would go up to London and see the 
young lady whose image, for the last twelve months, 
had haunted him so constantly. 

But having once given in to the pleasing notion that 
he was intended eventually to try his fortune with 
Elizabeth, Mr. Leeper became absurdly anxious to see 
her as soon as possible. It, was not without one or two 
struggles that he decided to postpone his visit till all 
business matters should be settled. Poor Mr. Leeper 
had been accustomed to obey his own commands un- 
hesitatingly for a good number of years ; but now his 
inclination seemed sadly disposed to rebel against his 
will. He was sensible of the rebellion, and it made him 
stern and imperious toward himself. Men of his nature 
seem almost to buy the right of being somewhat harsh 
to others, since they are so unsparing to themselves. 
Mr. Leeper did not love his neighbor with altogether 
apostolic fervor ; but at times he absolutely hated him- 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD WHITE. 241 


self — which, perhaps, failing the first, was the next best 
thing he could do. ^ 

It was on a soft dull afternoon, toward the end of 
March, that Mr. Keeper found himself, at last, waiting 
on Mrs. Lorimer’s doorstep — one of those warm ener- 
vating days when spring seems to come upon us sud- 
denly ; deceptive days, tempting persons of a sanguine 
disposition to throw aside great-coats, and believe that 
winter is altogether past — followed too often, in our un- 
certain climate, by disappointment for the hopeful in 
the shape of weeks of black northeast wind. 

London seemed very hot and stuffy after the brac- 
ing air of Midlandshire. Mr. Keeper was less vigor- 
ous than usual. The warm day made him feel a little 
limp. He was rather nervous too, and was aware that 
he was not in exactly the right state, either of mind or 
of body, for a great undertaking. He had not decided 
how much he meant to say to Elizabeth Korimer ; he 
hoped again that circumstances would point the way 
for him. Few men feel at their best with the possibil- 
ity of a proposal hanging over them, and Mr. Keeper 
felt decidedly uncomfortable at this moment. 

Mrs. Korimer was at home — so Martha told him. 
That excellent woman was somewhat moved at his ad- 
vent. It was pleasant to her to see a familiar face from 
the Claybrooke neighborhood, even though the owner 
of it was not held very dear at Claybrooke Rectory it- 
self. She conducted Mr. Keeper up-stairs with a consid- 
erable show of satisfaction, and brought him word that 
Mrs. Korimer was engaged just then, but would be with 
him shortly. 

It must be remembered that Mr. Keeper had been 
living quietly in a not particularly enlightened part of 
11 


242 


MRS. LORIMER. 


the country, for some years, and had by no means kept 
pace with the times in the matter of house decoration ; 
therefore the appearance of Mrs. Lorimer’s drawing- 
room struck him rather forcibly. The rich, mysterious 
colors of the carpets and hangings, the strange, crowded 
pattern of the wall-paper, the quaintly-shaped furniture? 
the dusky blue covers of the chairs, the profusion of 
pretty, useless, unnecessary odds and ends — all surprised 
him a little. The room was filled with the delicious 
sweetness of a couple of flame-colored azaleas, in full 
blossom, standing in large pots in the windows. There 
was a sense to him of unrestfulness, of too much mean- 
ing, in all this subdued color, in this multitude of forms 
and patterns. He was strongly aware of the charm of 
it all ; but it was bewildering to him in a way. He al- 
most recoiled from it. 

Mr. Leeper was not quite himself this afternoon. 
He was easily affected. The room seemed to him a 
little dangerous, and even more enervating, to the mor- 
al and mental fibers, than the soft spring day outside. 
He hated to be influenced. He liked to dominate his 
surroundings ; and as he looked round this room, with 
its luxurious decorations and sweetly-scented atmos- 
phere, he became sensible that there was a risk of his 
surroundings dominating him. Mr. Leeper had starved 
his senses on high moral grounds ; his senses seemed in- 
clined to take their revenge on him this afternoon. 
The memory of Elizabeth Lorimer’s beauty grew 
stronger and stronger within him ; he longed more than 
ever to see her. Yet he felt angry with himself, angry 
with her, distrustful of the leading. It seemed to him 
that, like Samson of old, he was being beguiled ; his 
strength and his vigor were in danger of being stolen, 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 243 


hopelessly, yet deliciously, away from him by the fair 
daughter of the Philistines. Mr. Peeper’s forehead 
crumpled itself up into very hard lines ; and his tall, an- 
gular, black figure looked singularly out of place amid 
the dim richness of Elizabeth Lorimer’s drawing-room. 

He stood lost in a rather unpleasant reverie, when 
the soft, dragging sound of a woman’s dress on the car- 
pet caused him suddenly to look round. Elizabeth had 
come in through the other room, and was standing with 
one arm raised, pushing aside the heavy portiere. 

She was dressed in a long gown of black brocaded 
stuff. The material was soft, and hung in graceful 
folds as she stretched her hand up to draw back the 
curtain. She wore some handsome old lace, at her 
throat and wrists, of that delightfully harmonious shade 
of color which inartistic persons are wont to say is the 
objectionable result of a want of good honest soap-and- 
water — there are people, though, who in their adoration 
of cleanliness would wash the bloom off a peach before 
eating it, I believe ! Elizabeth’s brown hair was knot- 
ted low down at the back of her head, and curled a 
little about her forehead, lending a certain pretty ten- 
derness to her face. Her appearance intensified the 
feelings with which Mr. Keeper was already troubled. 
She was certainly very beautiful. He enjoyed, and yet 
almost regretted it. 

All this, though long in the telling of it, occupied 
really but a few seconds of time. Elizabeth greeted 
her guest very graciously, while he, on his part, pre- 
sented rather a distui*bed and harassed countenance to 
her gaze. 

I did not know you were in London, Mr. Keeper,” 
she said, smiling as she held out her hand to him. 


244 


MES. LOEIMEE. 


“ I have come up on business,” he answered. My 
stay is not likely to be a protracted one.” 

“ Then it is all the more kind of you to take the 
trouble of coming to see me,” said Elizabeth. 

Mr. Leeper looked at her rather anxiously. It struck 
Elizabeth that there was an odd intensity and sugges- 
tion of suppressed excitement about his face and man- 
ner. It was a little uncomfortable. But probably it 
meant nothing — she had not seen him for a long time ; 
and meanwhile she had been living among people who 
were quite the reverse of intense.' Mr. Beeper’s visit 
was a matter of very secondary importance to Eliz- 
abeth. Her thoughts were much more occupied with 
the fact that she had made a disagreeable discovery re- 
garding her banker’s book, and that nothing had been 
heard or seen of Fred Wharton since the day on which 
he had so abruptly left her. 

“ Won’t you sit down ?” she said, settling herself as 
she spoke in a low chair by the fireplace. 

‘‘I would rather stand, thank you,” answered Mr. 
Leeper, with unnecessary precision. 

Elizabeth felt a little bit bored. She leaned back 
lazily in her chair, resting her elbows on the two arms 
of it, and holding up one hand to shield her face from 
the warmth of the smoldering fire. Mr. Leeper could 
not help observing the fine pose of her figure, and the 
graceful turn of her head as it rested against the dull 
blue chair-cover. He did not want to remark these 
things ; but iney were too strong for him, and he could 
not help ri. 

“I suppose everything is going on much as usual at 
Lowcote,” said Elizabeth, feeling that she must find 
some subject of conversation. 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 245 


“ I believe so,” answered Mr. Deeper, shortly. 

“ Why, are you not just come from there ? ” she 
asked. 

Mr. Deeper saw light ; he wanted to talk about his 
prospects and his work ; he fancied it would restore his 
equilibrium. 

“ NTo,” he said, “ I have left Dowcote, Mrs. Dorimer. 
I have a much larger and more interesting parish now. 
I was not sorry to leave Dowcote ; I never had enough 
to do there.” 

Ah, no ! ” said Elizabeth ! “ I remember your tell- 

ing me that. Where are you living now ? ” 

“ I have got a parish in the north of the county,” he 
answered. “ A manufacturing district is deeply inter- 
esting. I have an extended sphere of work and, I 
trust, of usefulness. The people, I think, will be far 
more intelligent and responsive than in a purely agri- 
cultural district. Personally,” added Mr. Deeper, draw- 
ing himself up and looking more composed, and conse- 
quently more pleasing, than he had since Elizabeth en- 
tered the room, “ personally, I feel deeply interested in, 
and very hopeful respecting, the work before me — ^but I 
shall want help.” 

“ Oh ! you are sure to find help,” said Elizabeth, 
smiling. She rather liked Mr. Deeper when he became 
enthusiastic. 

‘‘You think so?” he asked, quickly. “I trust I 
may, Mrs. Dorimer, for I shall want it. It is no mere 
pastime that I am undertaking, but a work to call out 
and develop all a man’s powers and energies.” 

“ That you will like,” she said. “ I fancy you 
haven’t any gift for being lazy and merely sitting still.” 

“The parish has been very much neglected,” Mr. 


246 


MKS. LOKIMER. 


Leeper went on. He wanted to fortify and brace him- 
self with the thought of his work. “ I shall have to 
reorganize the whole of the parochial machinery — or 
rather to create it, for at present it can hardly be said 
to exist at all. I must raise money to build a mission- 
room. I want to establish a coffee-tavern with as little 
delay as possible, for I am afraid the drunkenness is 
terrible in the low-lying parts of the parish. And, final- 
ly, I must try to restore the church, and I must have 
bright hearty services which will be attractive to the 
people.” 

“You have plenty of work before you,” said Eliza- 
beth, smiling pleasantly. “I wish you all success in 
your undertakings.” 

“ Thank you, Mrs. Lorimer,” answered Mr. Leeper 
— ^then he paused a moment. “ I wish,” he added, look- 
ing at her earnestly, “ that I could awaken a strong in- 
terest in your mind regarding my parish.” 

“ I am very much interested in all you tell me,” an- 
swered Elizabeth. 

She felt that she ought to have a great respect for 
Mr. Leeper and his work. He certainly had higher 
aims, and devoted himself much more consistently to 
the good of his fellow-creatures, than any one else 
whom she knew. But Elizabeth was rather worried and 
rather dissatisfied. She was quite unequal to getting 
up a sudden enthusiasm for the improvement of Mr. 
Leeper’s manufacturing parish. She felt wearied in 
face of his vigor and energy. — She let the hand, with 
which she had been shading her face from the fire, fall 
languidly down on to the arm of the chair. The move- 
ment was a slight one, but it nvi-ested Mr. Leeper’s at- 
tention. Again it struck him how beautiful she was. 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 247 

He felfc he was being hurried forward, and being com- 
pelled to speak more clearly than he had purposed 
doing. 

“ I have a very special reason,” he said, ‘‘ a very 
special reason for desiring to interest you in my future. 
You may not, perhaps, just now be able to estimate of 
what deep and vital importance your concurrence in my 
projects may be to me.” 

Elizabeth began to feel a little uncomfortable. 
There was a curious mixture of determination and en- 
treaty about Mr. Keeper’s manner. 

“On two occasions,” he continued, “when we have 
had some conversation together, you have given me an 
impression that if a life of — perhaps hard — but noble 
work and high endeavor were offered to you, you would 
not reject it.” 

Elizabeth raised herself from her easy position and 
sat straight up, looking at Mr. Keeper with very wide- 
open eyes. 

Mr. Keeper had tried to set his ideas in order ; to 
think of the Cause ; to magnify his work ; but as Eliza- 
beth, surprised and lovely, looked up wonderingly at 
him, all the feelings, which had assaulted him when he 
first came into the room, rushed in upon him with re- 
doubled force. Not coffee-taverns, or church restora- 
tions, or bright services, touched Mr. Keeper’s thoughts 
of the future with delight and glory. Alas ! not the 
Cause, but the woman, drew him on. 

He turned suddenly away and walked hastily across 
the room. Then coming back, and standing before 
Elizabeth, his face pale and working with emotion, he 
said, hoarsely : 

“ Will you marry me, Mrs. Korimer ? ” 


2i8 


MRS. LORIMER. 


‘‘ Good gracious, Mr. Leeper ! ” cried Elizabeth, get- 
ting up quickly. She was amazed out of all common 
politeness by this wholly unexpected proposal. ‘‘ I beg 
your pardon,” she added, recovering herself rapidly ; 
“you must excuse me. Your question has taken me so 
entirely by surprise.” 

“I can not help myself,” he said, almost fiercely. 

Then poor Mr. Leeper fell very low in his own es- 
timation ; he used the Cause as a stalking-horse, and 
he knew that it was ignoble. 

“ Think — pause — pray consider,” he said, stretching 
out his hand with a warning movement. “ Do not re- 
fuse a call to a noble work. Do not hastily put aside a 
chance of greatly benefiting others. You could do 
so much, Mrs. Lorimer. You might be a blessing to 
hundreds of poor, degraded, struggling creatures. With 
your beauty, your talents, your position, think of all that 
you might do. Surely, surely, these considerations 
must move you. Pray pause before you answer me.” 

There was something positively alarming in the 
desperate intensity of the man’s manner, and in the 
earnestness of his words. Elizabeth felt that she was 
almost wicked in not pausing, at all events, as he asked 
her to. She stood with her hands clasped tightly to- 
gether, trying to be quite calm, and to keep her eyes 
fixed steadily upon his face — though her heart was 
beating so that she could not see him clearly. 

“I have no desire to marry,” she said, as quietly 
and distinctly as she could. “ I have no intention of 
marrying — none. I am quite contented with my pres- 
ent circumstances. You must pardon my frankness ; 
this is a matter in which the simple truth is best.” 

There was a pause. 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 249 


The passions of anger and love have a good deal in 
common. Mr. Keeper felt himself filled with a perfect 
volcano of righteous indignation. He forgot Samson ; 
he took leave of the broad humanities of the Old Testa- 
ment, and turned as bitterly upon the beautiful woman 
before him as St. Athanasius himself might have turned 
upon some fair wanton in Alexandria of old. The Fa- 
thers, we know, did a good deal of scolding at times. — 
He fancied that he was about to smite with the sword 
of the Lord ; but, alas ! for the easiness of self-decep- 
tion, he really smote with no nobler weapon than the 
stiletto of a disappointed lover. 

“You reject it, then,” he said, bitterly ; “reject all 
I offer you without a second thought. You reject high 
aims, an earnest life, a noble dedication of yourself to 
the good of the Church and of your fellow-creatures. 
It is a dangerous thing to do, Mrs. Lorimer. A thing 
that can hardly be done with perfect impunity. And 
what do you reject it for ? ” he added, looking con- 
temptuously round the room. “ For this ! for luxury, 
and idleness, and curious furniture, and delicate hang- 
ings ; for what pleases the eye merely, and leaves the 
heart vain and empty. You care only to sit here at 
your ease — like Dives of old, to fare sumptuously every 
day, while the beggar lies at your gate full of sores—, 
while hundreds of men and women live the lives and 
die the deaths of mere brutes, and you will not stretch 
out a finger to help them. Ah ! it is you,” he said, “ and 
beautiful cold-hearted women like you, who are the ruin 
of our day ! You take plain hard-working men captive, 
with your charm and your loveliness. You bewilder 
their eyes, you turn their minds from high purposes, 
you make them fall in their own self-respect, you be- 


250 


MRS. LORIMER. 

witch and fascinate them, you play even at caring for 
their work, you pretend to sympathize with them ; and 
then, in the end, you reject them — you send them away 
with their hearts no longer honest, with their self-re- 
spect shattered, with the haunting knowledge that they 
are perjured in their own sight and in the sight of God. 
I have offered you an heroic life, and you — ” 

‘‘Stop, stop ! ” cried Elizabeth, haughtily. She was 
too angry to reason, or protest, or justify herself. The 
very touch of truth in Mr. Leeper’s violent discourse, 
where he called her life useless, vain, and empty, made 
her all the more resentful toward him. “You forget 
yourself strangely,” she said. “ You have not the faint- 
est right to speak to me in this way. And understand,” 
she added, with a cruel light in her eyes — “ understand, 
once and for all, it is not so much your work that I 
reject — I could easily, at moments even gladly perhaps, 
give myself to that. It is the condition with which it 
is offered to me that I reject. I absolutely reject 
you.” 

For a moment they stood looking at each other. 
Mr. Leeper seemed to shrink ; he seemed to fall togeth- 
er somehow. He despised himself — which was far more 
painful to him than hating himself. There was no one 
point in the whole of this interview that he could re- 
member with satisfaction. He had deceived himself ; 
he had been in the wrong from beginning to end ; he 
had betrayed the Cause at first, and at last he had been 
almost insolent to this woman in her own house. His 
anger changed to shame. The nobler part of his nature 
asserted itself. 

“I beg your pardon,” he said, simply. “I have 
made a great mistake.” 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 251 

And lie turned away without another word and left 
her. 

Mr. Leeper traveled back to Korth Midlandshire 
that night, a bitterly humiliated man. He was disap- 
pointed in his love, and that was bad enough, after his 
long waiting and thinking ; but, worse still, he was dis- 
appointed in himself, for he had been both weak and 
unfaithful to what he held to be the highest good. 
Fortunately, the care of some five or six thousand souls 
does not leave much time for brooding over any disas- 
ter, however great. Mr. Leeper flung himself into 
parish work with almost alarming vigor. He was a 
stern shepherd, and drove rather than led his flock 
into the ways of righteousness and temperance. He 
gained a reputation for determination, for dogmatism, 
for possessing, to a remarkable degree, the courage of 
his convictions. But though Mr. Leeper changed very 
little outwardly as time went on, he never quite, I 
fancy, forgot a certain enervating day late in March, a 
beautiful and scornful woman standing in a luxuri- 
ous and strangely perfumed room, and teaching him a 
wholesome though unpleasant lesson respecting his own 
fallibility and shortcomings. 


CHAPTER VI. 


“ Vain is the effort to forget.” 

Theee is generally a lively feeling of satisfaction 
in the remembrance of having played a difBcult game 
and won it. I am afraid this satisfaction is not wholly 
amiable, and arises less from the thought of one’s own 
skill than from joy at the painful discomfiture of one’s 
opponent. When poor Mr. Leeper admitted his mis- 
take, and retired humbled and worsted from the scene 
of action, Elizabeth was conscious of a certain proud 
pleasure. She rejoiced in his humiliation. But when 
the first heat of her anger against him died down, and 
she had time to think the matter over quietly, she be- 
came more sensible of having received, than' of having 
administered, a pretty sharp rebuke. 

For the last eighteen months she had been trying 
an experiment. By the rejection of various old ele- 
ments in her life, and the careful fusing and mingling 
various new ones, she hoped to manufacture happiness. 
She anxiously watched the crucible ; drew forth a little 
of its contents now and then to test them ; added fresh 
ingredients ; fanned her furnace-fire into a flame, to try 
what more heat would do, and then let it smolder and 
almost die into white ashes, to see whether a lower 
temperature would be more efficacious — ^but, though 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 253 


slie waited and watched with admirable patience and 
constancy, the elements would not mingle somehow, and 
melt into the harmonious glow of true happiness. Eliza- 
beth began to distrust the results of her experiment. 
She bent anxiously over her work, she applied herself 
to it more diligently than ever ; but in her secret soul 
a wretched suspicion grew, ever stronger and stronger, 
that happiness can never be manufactured ; that though 
all the kingdoms of the world and all the glory of them 
were passed through the alembic, yet not enough happi- 
ness could be distilled from them to satisfy the thirst of 
one frail human creature. 

Mr. Keeper had come fearlessly into the mysterious 
gloom of her laboratory, and had told her — almost 
brutally — that her experiment would be a dead failure, 
and that her working at it was so much mere waste of 
time. Elizabeth had driven him out with flashing eyes 
and scornful words ; yet the longer she thought over it, 
the more she feared that he had spoken the truth. 

Wharton’s disappearance had disturbed Elizabeth 
very, much ; more, indeed, than she cared to own, even 
to herself. She was almost alarmed at discovering — 
now that he was gone — what a large element his soci- 
ety, his music, and pleasant conversation, had repre- 
sented in her scheme of happiness. She was annoyed 
at feeling his absence so much, and rather overplayed 
the part of entire indifference in consequence. 

She had been restless and uncertain before, as Mrs. 
Frank Lorimer had not failed to note. These unpleas- 
ant symptoms were aggravated by Wharton’s disap- 
pearance. Mrs. Frank observed them. They made her 
acutely uncomfortable. She asked herself, more than 
once, whether she had not made a fatal mistake. IBut 


254r 


MES. LOEIMEE. 


she gave no hint to her husband, or to the world, of the 
share she had had in producing the present aspect of 
affairs. Like the bad characters in the Psalms, Mrs. 
Frank Lorimer kept herself close, and like them, hid 
much mental discomfort under a remarkably flourishing 
exterior. 

FTor were these more subtile and subjective troubles 
the only ones which my poor Elizabeth had to struggle 
with at this period. There were others of a plain, ob- 
vious, and material character which caused her a good 
deal of anxiety. During the last year and a half she 
had spent a large sum of money. Decorating a house, 
after the sumptuous and fanciful manner of the present 
day, necessitates a considerable outlay. Then Elizabeth 
had expended a good deal upon her clothes. She had 
a natural tendency toward surrounding herself with the 
best of everything. Wharton had advised her to be 
charming, and please her friends. She was charming ; 
she was more — she was, in a way, magniflcent. No 
doubt it is a most admirable thing to be magnificent ; 
but, unfortunately, it costs a lot of money. Certainly 
she had not entertained much, so that the actual ex- 
penses of her housekeeping ought not to have been 
great ; yet even in this department a good deal more 
had been spent than was actually necessary. Elizabeth 
had been rather worried for some time, but by the end 
of March her financial position was such that she per- 
ceived some very distinct change in her manner of liv- 
ing to be absolutely indispensable. 

Frank Lorimer was his brother’s executor, and was 
by way of managing Elizabeth’s affairs for her. But, 
in point of fact, they had hardly ever mentioned money 
matters to each other. Frank had plenty of other 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 255 


things to do, and had troubled himself very little about 
his obligations in the matter ; and Elizabeth always had 
a tendency to take her fate, rather forcibly, into her 
own hands. 

It is never agreeable to allow, even to one’s self, that 
one has been needlessly and foolishly extravagant. Still 
less is it agreeable to invite the criticism of another per- 
son in the matter. Elizabeth put off speaking to her 
brother-in-law as long as possible, though she had great 
confidence both in his ability and willingness to help 
her ; but at last she had to admit that no other course 
was open to her. Not caring to include Mrs. Frank in 
her confidence — she had conceived a slight distrust of 
her charming sister-in-law lately — she wrote privately 
to Frank, inclosing various necessary papers and state- 
ments, and begging him to come the first evening he 
was at liberty and deliver his verdict on the situation. 

Frank Lorimer was of a very reasonable tempera- 
ment. As a rule, he had not the least inclination to 
quarrel with things as they are ; but he had often felt 
it hard that the world had not been constituted on some 
principle which would have rendered it unnecessary for 
him ever to have to say anything unpleasant to any- 
body. You may call this inherent sweetness of nature, 
or a lamentable want of moral courage, as you please. 
The more delicate virtues always run the risk of being 
included under the head of reprehensible weakness of 
character. Anyway, Frank Lorimer found no righteous 
satisfaction in rebuking the erring brother. And re- 
buking the erring sister seemed to him, if possible, even 
more objectionable. He felt that Elizabeth had been 
very careless and extravagant, but he had not the small- 
est desire to tell her so. Consequently, he arrived at 


256 


MRS. LORIMER. 


her house, on the evening of the day following Mr. 
Leeper’s stormy visit, with a sense upon him that he had 
a most ungracious duty to accomplish. He 'struggled to 
put off the evil moment of delivering his opinion on 
Elizabeth’s expenses as long as possible, and took refuge 
in a little general conversation to begin with. 

“ I heard from Wharton this morning,” he said, when 
their first greetings were over. 

Frank stood with his back to the fire, in the attitude 
so natural to civilized man when he finds himself in the 
house of a near relation or intimate friend. 

‘‘ It was only a line. He’s gone down to Oakhurst — 
says he is gone there on business. That is really a re- 
freshingly untruthful statement as coming from him. 
Fred’s capacity for business is of the most primitive and 
rudimentary description, you know. I don’t somehow 
understand it,” he added, meditatively. “ It seems to 
me he must have been very much put to it for an excuse 
before he would take refuge in talking of business, spe- 
cially to me. I can’t conceive why he’s gone off just 
now. The country must be hideously chilly.” 

Elizabeth had been standing near him by the fire. 
As he spoke she moved away, and, sitting down on a 
sofa near the window, began furling and unfurling a 
black-and-gold fan which hung at her side, with an ap- 
pearance of considerable interest. 

Oh ! business means drawings, I suppose,” she an- 
swered, without looking up. “ I dare say he’s got some 
fresh orders. There are always a lot of people staying 
at Oakhurst. He may have arranged to meet Mrs. Ostler 
Westcott there. He began a drawing of her last season 
and never finished it.” 

‘‘Yes, I know,” remarked Frank. “Westcott of- 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AM) WHITE. 257 


fended him somehow, and he wouldn’t go on with it. 
Westcdtt is rather a vulgar creature, I admit.” 

Elizabeth put up her eyebrows slightly. 

‘‘ Isn’t he sufficiently punished in the possession of 
such a universally attractive wife, poor man?” she 
said. 

Frank shrugged his shoulders as apologizing kindly 
for the shortcomings of the whole house of Westcott. 

“ She told me,” Elizabeth continued, ‘‘ one day, that 
she made it a rule always to go into retreat in Lent. I 
inquired where, and she said, ‘ Oh ! at Oakhurst ; ’ so 
she’s sure to be there now.” 

‘‘ Pleasant for Adolphus Carr,” said Frank, smiling. 
“ Complimentary to find yourself and your house re- 
garded in the light of a practical renunciation of the 
world.” 

Elizabeth did not answer. 

“ If Wharton’s gone to draw, why can’t he just say 
so, though ? ” remarked Frank Lorimer after a moment’s 
pause, contemplating the hearth-rug with an air of mild 
suspicion. ‘‘ I hate mysteries. Wharton used to be so 
charmingly unmysterious ; but he’s changed somehow 
lately. He is preoccupied. Sometimes he seems as if 
he had something on his mind. It is a great pity. It 
will be very depressing if Fred follows the multitude to 
do evil and becomes serious.” 

Elizabeth bent down over her fan, and diligently dis- 
entangled the silk threads of the tassel of it. 

Don’t agitate yourself about him, Frank,” she said. 
‘^Mrs. Ostler Westcott maybe trusted to restore any- 
body to a most becoming state of frivolity.” 

Frank raised his eyes slowly from the hearth-rvig and 
looked at Elizabeth with a sensation of slight surprise. 


258 


MRS.- lorim:er. 


There was a suggestion of personal feeling in her way 
of speaking which he could not help remarking. He 
knew that most pretty women have a disposition to dis- 
like each other ; but he had fancied that Elizabeth was 
above that sort of thing. He was quite willing to ad- 
mit that she was often too emotional, and even a little 
exaggerated ; but he had never supposed her capable of 
small meannesses or social jealousies. Both her faults 
and her virtues were on the grand scale, he thought. 

Elizabeth made a graceful picture, in the softly- 
shaded light of her quaint room, as she bent over the 
tassel of her fan, with a pretty show of industry in the 
disentangling of it. As he looked at her, Frank thought, 
‘‘ She, at least, need not much fear comparison with any 
woman as far as beauty goes.” 

Frank had almost forgotten his unpleasant after- 
dinner conversation with his wife on the subject of 
Elizabeth and Wharton. It had taken place nearly 
three weeks before, and Frank made it a rule to forget 
unpleasant things as soon as possible. 

Suddenly, as he stood looking at his sister-in-law, he 
remembered his wife’s suggestion. What so natural as 
that Fred Wharton should fall in love with this charm- 
ing woman ? And — for Wharton was a delightful fel- 
low — what so probable as that Elizabeth should in some 
degree return his affection ? Yet the notion was dis- 
tinctly displeasing to Frank, somehow. He quite ac- 
knowledged that it would be absurd to expect every 
young lady, who might have the misfortune to lose her 
husband at one-and-twenty, never to contemplate mar- 
rying again. It would be altogether too much to de- 
mand that all young widows should devote themselves 
to some such mild form of suttee. Other men’s wid- 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 259 


oWs, he thought, might do what they pleased, but for 
Robert Lorimer’s widow to be thinking of a second 
marriage within little more than two years of her hus- 
band’s death ! — no, most decidedly Frank did not like 
it. He was conscious of a sudden jealous tenderness 
for his brother’s memory. Flow Robert had worshiped 
Elizabeth, and yet she hardly ever even referred to 
him ! 

It often happens that when two people are together 
who know each other intimately, without any osten- 
sible cause or spoken word, they will both fall into the 
same train of thought at the same moment. A'ou may 
put this singular phenomenon down to mere coinci- 
dence — which, like charity, has a capacity for covering a 
multitude of inconvenient facts — or you may talk learn- 
edly of brain-waves, and subtle magnetic correspond- 
ences between kindred minds. The phenomenon re- 
mains, whatever may be the explanation of it. Mr. 
Leeper’s somewhat ferocious proposal of the day before 
had pressed the possibility of a second marriage clearly 
upon Elizabeth’s mind. She had heard some slight ru- 
mors of the gossip regarding herself and Wharton, 
which had been going the rounds among her friends 
and acquaintances ; but Elizabeth, confident in the hon- 
esty of her own friendship, had put it aside as a disa- 
greeable impertinence, upon which she would not con- 
descend to bestow a second thought. 

How, as she played with her black-and-gold fan, 
while Frank Lorimer stood meditating on the hearth- 
rug, she had a sudden illumination. People thought 
that under cover of friendship she was trying to make 
Wharton marry her. Wharton himself thought so, and 
had therefore discreetly retired. Everybody — possibly 


260 


MRS. LORIMER. 


even Fanny and Frank — thought that, to use a vulgar 
expression, she had been throwing herself at this young 
gentleman’s head ! 

Elizabeth sat aghast as this odious notion unfolded 
itself before her. Ashamed, angry, and outraged, she 
looked up suddenly at Frank, dreading to read a con- 
firmation of her fears in his expression. 

Frank Lorimer was feeling somewhat angry, too. He 
liked his friend immensely ; but just at this moment he 
was chiefly sensible of a keen feeling of loving jealousy 
for his brother. 

When Elizabeth glanced up, their eyes met. Both 
she and her companion were conscious of a curious sen- 
sation. All the vague amiability had died out of Frank 
Lorimer’s face — in as far as it was possible for him to 
look severe, he looked so at this moment. This change 
of expression developed the latent likeness between him 
and Robert Lorimer very clearly. For an instant it 
seemed to Elizabeth that her dead husband was looking 
down earnestly, almost reproachfully, at her. She drew 
back with a start, and put up one hand almost as though 
she wanted to force him away from her. 

The action was so rapid that Frank Lorimer hardly 
observed it. He turned away, and after a moment said, 
quietly : 

“ Have you got that sketch, Elizabeth — I’ve often 
meant to ask you and haven’t quite liked to, somehow — ■ 
that Adolphus Carr once did of Robert? Have you 
got it, or have I ? ” 

Elizabeth straightened herself up and clasped her 
hands tightly together in her lap. Her forehead con- 
tracted sharply, as with a sensation of sudden pain. 
There was a moment’s pause, and then she answered in 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD WHITE. 2G1 

a voice which she evidently had a difficulty in keeping 
steady : 

“I have got it. But — hut why do you ask just 
now ? ’’ 

“ Oh ! I don’t know,” said Frank, feeling a little 
confused. “ It occurred to me just now. I shouldn’t 
like it to be lost, you know, and I couldn’t find it. 
Fanny said you had it.” 

“Yes, I have got it,” Elizabeth repeated. “Fanny 
was quite right.” 

Frank Lorimer’s indignation was not of the burning 
order. Already he began to accuse himself of having 
treated his fair sister-in-law with a singular absence of 
the delicate consideration which was her due. 

“ Fanny generally is right, you know,” he said, with 
a slight smile, wishing to pass the matter off as lightly 
as possible. Mentally he called himself an awkward 
brute. 

Elizabeth had risen from her seat. She stood for a 
moment looking straight in front of her. Then she 
threw back her head with a certain defiant movement, 
and turning to her companion, said coldly : 

“ If we are going to talk business, hadn’t we better 
begin at once ? I am not quick at figures ; it will take 
me a long time to understand, I dare say. Shall we 
come into the other room and begin ? ” 

Frank Lorimer felt rather humble as he followed 
Elizabeth into the back drawing-room. He told him- 
self that he had given way to a nasty, suspicious state 
of mind, and that he ought to be ashamed of himself. 
Ho doubt the sketch was hanging up in Elizabeth’s bed- 
room with fresh flowers before it. Nice women are 
given to arranging dainty little altars and shrines, at 


262 


MES. LORIMER. 


wliicli to worship their dead saints. Frank felt very 
apologetic. He had trodden on sacred ground without 
making any decent attempt to remove his shoes first. 
He felt that he had given Elizabeth cause to be angry 
with him. He was less inclined than ever to say un- 
pleasant things to her about her extravagant expenditure. 

“ I blame myself very much in these business mat- 
ters of yours, Elizabeth,” he said. “ I’m afraid I have 
been wretchedly negligent. I ought to have looked 
after things more, and then you wouldn’t have all this 
worry.” 

Elizabeth sat down at the writing-table, and began 
arranging the papers. She was vividly conscious all 
the while that the drawing of her dead husband lay, 
face downward, in the drawer, just under her hand. 
She had squandered Robert’s money to help her to for- 
get Robert. The thought was hardly a soothing one 
just now. 

“ I don’t think I need bother you with a statement 
of everything,” Frank went on. “ If you’ll just agree 
to my suggestion, and leave the rest to me. I’ll set it all 
straight.” 

Elizabeth looked up quickly, with a keenly-distressed 
expression. 

“ Oh, no, no ! ” she said. I can’t let you do 
that.” 

I don’t mean settle it in the positive and material 
form,” answered Frank, smiling. “ It can all be ar- 
ranged without any more trouble to me than the writ- 
ing of a few letters.” 

‘‘ It is a miserable business,” cried Elizabeth, getting 
up suddenly and turning away, while the hot tears came 
into her eyes. 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 263 


“ Pray, don’t make yourself so unliappy, Elizabeth,” 
said Frank, quickly, ‘‘Nothing so very desperate has 
happened, after all. You’re in a little mess, but you’re 
by no means bankrupt yet.” 

Elizabeth was always disposed to feel too strongly, 
Frank knew. lie was prepared for that ; but still the 
expression of her face did seem to him most unnecessa- 
rily tragic at this moment. 

“ What shall I do ? ” asked she, without looking at 
him. 

“Well,” he answered, “if you didn’t mind going 
away for a time, and letting the house for the season — 
it’s so pretty that you might ask a fancy price for it — 
I think we could put all your affairs straight.” 

“I am quite willing to go,” said Elizabeth. The 
house and all connected with it represented so much 
annoyance and disappointment just now, that she was 
disposed to welcome almost any change. 

“I suppose you could go down to Mr. Mainwaring’s, 
at Claybrooke, for the summer, couldn’t you ? ” Frank 
added. 

“ Oh no, please ! not there,” said Elizabeth, quickly. 

She shrank from the idea of Claybrooke under these 
circumstances. Elizabeth had begun to feel that she 
had not behaved altogether nicely to the Mainwarings. 
She recoiled from the notion of making use of those 
persons whom she had formerly neglected. 

“ Mightn’t I go abroad ? ” she said. “ I suppose I 
should have to take Martha with me, but I could live 
very cheaply. I could easily find a quiet, inexpensive 
'pension at Vevey, or somewhere about there.” 

“Wouldn’t you be awfully bored, though?” ob- 
served Frank. 


MRS. LORIMER. 


2G4: 

“ Oil no,” slie answered. “ I think I should rather 
enjoy being alone.” 

At this moment, with the thought of Fred Whar- 
ton’s possible interpretation of her conduct strong in 
her mind, and the memory of her husband so strangely 
and suddenly forced upon her remembrance, Elizabeth 
had a sort of sullen longing to escape from every- 
body. 

“ There are always the mountains and the lake to 
fall back upon,” she added. 

Frank made a rather expressive face. 

“I don’t go in very much for mountains myself, 
you know,” he said. ‘‘ They are rather grisly compan- 
ions when one is alone. But you do just as you like, 
Elizabeth.” 

“ I don’t feel as if it mattered very much where I 
went, or what I did,” said Elizabeth, with a sudden 
bitterness. ‘‘ I am afraid I am altogether a superfluity. 
Everything seems to go wrong with me.” 

Frank, not having the keys to the position, could 
only smooth his fair beard, and wish, in silence, that 
women were not so much given to making general 
statements of a lugubrious and unreasonable nature. 

After a minute he observed, in tones intended to 
be encouraging : 

“ Fanny’s bent on going abroad again this year, so 
I suppose we shall go. Fanny generally has her own 
way in the end. She and the children might join you 
in July, and I would follow as soon as I can escape 
from that everlasting paper.” 

Elizabeth did not offer any comment. 

“Very well, then,” he said, “you’ll leave all these 
accounts and things in my hands. I’ll see about letting 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 265 


the house at once. We ought to let it from the begin- 
ning of May. Can you 'pack up and clear out by then, 
do you think ? ” 

/ “ Oh, yes ! ” she replied, wearily. I can be ready 

any tinie. The sooner the better, as far as I am con- 
cerned.” 


CHAPTER VIT. 


“ For a pinte of hony thou slialt here likely find a gallon of gaul, for 
a dram of pleasure a pound of pain, for an inch of mirth an ell of 
mone; as Ivie doth an Oke, these miseries encompass our life.” 

It is not nocessary to follow Elizabetli tbrough. tho 
fatiguing processes of packing up, arranging her house, 
and taking leave of her acquaintances, many of whom 
were a good deal interested by the news of her ap- 
proaching departure. Whanfcon not to be found, and 
Mrs. Lorimer letting her house and going abroad ! It 
looked very much as if something had happened. A 
good many questions were put to Fanny Lorimer ; but 
the anxious inquirers were not very fully satisfied by 
her answers. Fanny Lorimer had private reasons for 
desiring to keep her own counsel ; and displayed a con- 
siderable amount of the ingenuity that her husband so 
much admired, in baffling her too curious interlocutors. 
Sufflce it to say, that the house was let at a high rent to 
a clean and childless tenant ; and that Elizabeth saw 
that her pecuniary difflculties were in a fair way to be 
eventually settled. 

There is something depressing in the ending of al- 
most any episode in one’s career. The episode, in itself, 
may not have been very brilliant or satisfactory ; yet 
there is a sense of regret as one turns the page, and 
says to one’s selfj ‘^This is done with, anyway. It 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 267 


may influence the future a little, possibly ; but, practi- 
cally, it is past and over, and will never be read through 
again.” So felt Elizabeth the last few days she spent 
in London. 

Things seemed to have broken off short, and the 
future looked very blank and empty to her. In three 
days she would start on her journey ; and she began to 
fear, with Frank, that the mountains might prove rather 
cold and unresponsive company, after all. She had 
been packing and arranging and saying good-by all day 
long ; about half-past five a necessity for air and quiet 
came over her, and, wrapping herself in a long, fur- 
trimmed over-jacket — for the April evenings were still 
cold — she went out to refresh herself with a solitary 
walk by the river. She had been hurried and bothered 
in the last few weeks. She had been called on sud- 
denly to form new plans, and take an entirely new de- 
parture. She wanted a little time to arrange her ideas 
and get some general view of the situation. 

There had been a good deal of rain earlier in the 
day, and the sky was covered with a layer of dull, gray 
cloud. The rain was over, but the pavements were still 
wet, and the unlovely image of the lamp-posts was re- 
peated in ugly zigzag lines on their shiny surface. The 
river was very full, and swirled by with little hurrying 
circles and eddies, here and there, breaking the face of 
its otherwise smooth and oily current. It choked and 
gurgled around the piers of the bridges, and then swept 
on again swiftly, reflecting the sad-colored leaden sky 
above in its broad, unrestful bosom. The buildings on 
either bank loomed black and mysterious, through the 
dense misty atmosphere. The Embankment itself was 
quiet and deserted enough ; but Elizabeth could hear 


268 


MRS. LORIMER. 


distinctly, in the distance, the hoarse murmur rising up 
from the crowded streets. Suddenly a train rushed out 
across the railway-bridge, with a clang of metal and 
roar of steam ; and when the noise of it had died 
away far down in the south, she noted the sharp rattle 
of a hansom over a stone crossing, the steady thud of 
the horse’s hoofs, and the crunching of the roadway 
under the wheels as it passed her — another rattle over 
the stones again in the distance, and the sound of it, too, 
'died away in the unceasing murmur of the great, dim, 
toiling city. 

A sense of almost intolerable loneliness came over 
Elizabeth. There was something weird and strange to- 
day in the hurrying river and in all these familiar 
sounds. She seemed to be standing on the edge of a 
vast world of movement, of life, of earnest striving and 
endeavor, in which she had neither lot nor part. The 
past had not satisfied her hungry craving for happiness, 
and the future seemed to offer even less than the past. 
Love and marriage ? — alas ! she had tried them, they 
were over, and had yielded but scant delight. Friend- 
ship ? her friend had grown tired, and left her without a 
word ! Duty ? — Elizabeth shrank from the idea of duty ; 
it meant humiliation and self-abasement. Mrs. Main- 
waring’s face, thin and faded, came before her, and Mr. 
Leeper’s hot denunciations sounded in her ears. 

While the wet south wind swept across the river, 
bringing the delicate flush of youth and health to her 
cheeks, and men and women, passing by, turned to look 
once again at the richly-dressed, stately young lady 
pacing slowly along in the damp and dusky evening, 
Elizabeth felt herself utterly weary and desolate. Was 
it true, then, that life had little _ enough to give, after 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 


269 


all ? Did it really offer nothing but illusion, disappoint- 
ment, hopes unfulfilled, solemn vows broken, fair prom- 
ises forgotten ? And then the end of it, cold, dark, and 
ugly ; sweet lips that would kiss, kind hands that would 
clasp no more for ever ; beautiful limbs lying rigid in 
death ; eyes closed, and gentle voices hushed in ever- 
lasting silence ; and beyond— a hope merely, a possibil- 
ity — to faith a promise, a pledge, but faith, alas ! is 
often too weak to grasp it. Elizabeth thought of the 
quiet room, shaded from the fierce glare of the southerh 
sun, in which Robert Lorimer had panted his life slowly 
and painfully away two short years before ; of the last 
smile with which he had turned to Frank and her as 
they watched together by his bedside ; of the horrible 
chill and bewilderment that had overtaken her, when 
she realized that he would never move or speak to her 
again. Was it possible that this was all that life could 
give her, after all ? 

Elizabeth was filled with an immense self - pity. 
Those pagan instincts which are strong in every nature 
that is capable of being deeply moved by outward 
nature, by beauty, by the glory of physical health and 
physical joy, stirred within her. She revolted passion- 
ately against things as they are — against cold and re- 
lentless fact ; against the sorrowful ordering of this 
world ; against the strange unimportance of individual 
suffering in the general movement of things. It all 
seemed cruel, cruel, cruel. Why was she unsatisfied? 
why was she tormented thus ? She rebelled against her 
fate ; and, like Job of old, was tempted to “curse God 
and die.” 

Dov^m in the west, above the jagged line of house- 
roofs and chimneys on the river-bank, the clouds were 


270 


MRS. LORIMER. 


slowly breaking ; and, between the long, level lines of 
tbem there showed a space ‘of open sky— pale clear 
green, glowing into delicate saffron light down toward 
the horizon. It seemed infinitely far, ineffably j)ure, 
utterly peaceful — set there for a token of final and 
everlasting rest to the troubled and struggling children 
of men. To Elizabeth it seemed to image forth the 
pale, passionless rapture of saints and angels. It was of 
the heaven heavenly, she was of the earth earthy. She 
trembled and shrank away from the lofty purity of the 
Christian ideal, and demanded some more immediate 
and material description of satisfaction and happiness. 
She was, she felt, too much rooted and grounded in 
what was simply human to be able to fling herself for 
comfort on what was divine. It seemed to her that the 
awful and majestic figures of saints and martyrs, crowned 
now with the undying glories of their past sacrifice, and 
joyful in untiring adoration, could never have been men 
and women of like passions with herself. They seemed 
useless to her for comfort, or encouragement, or ex- 
ample. Their past anguish and their present bliss 
seemed as far removed from her ordinary, vain, and 
trivial life, as the unutterable purity of the western sky 
was removed from the muddy, swirling river, with its 
floating bits of wreck and weed. Deep down in the 
river-current, too, she feared, worse things than mere 
broken wreck and weed moved sullenly along— foul 
dead things which had once shown fair and graceful 
enough in the genial sunshine ; but now, for very shame, 
hid their dreadful and misshapen forms in the cold heart 
of the hurrying stream. So different, it seemed to her, 
were the human and the divine. The first had failed 
her, and she was desolate ; but she had neither the 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 271 


faith nor the courage yet to repent, and throw herself 
unreservedly for comfort and support upon the second. 

It was growing dusk. The long lines of lamps flick- 
ered along the roadway, while the still wet pavement 
gave back their blurred and distorted reflection. More 
than one passer-by had paused a moment, to look rather 
curiously at the tall young lady loitering in the chilly 
evening air. Elizabeth had been too busy with her own 
thoughts to heed them ; but she was sensible, at last, 
that some man passed her and then stopped asid turned 
back. Moved by a sudden impulse, she turned round 
too and faced him. It was Fred Wharton. 

“ Ah ! ” she cried, stretching out her hands toward 
him. “ I am so glad, so very glad you have come back ! ” 

Wharton, during his retirement in Sussex, had pict- 
ured to himself, pretty often, how he would meet Eliz- 
abeth again, and what he would say to her ; but this 
meeting was both unexpected in itself and unusual in 
its surroundings. Between the weird, spiritual light of 
the western sky and the uncertain glimmering of the 
vulgar gas-lamps, it seemed to him that her face looked 
strangely white and scared, her sweet mouth tremulous, 
her beautiful eyes wild. She looked to him like some 
lovely lost child. He could not stop to indulge in the 
usual little courtesies of recognition ; he longed su- 
premely to protect and comfort her. 

‘‘Something is the matter. Somebody has fright- 
ened you,” he said, fiercely, possessed with a strong de- 
sire to find that obnoxious somebody and destroy the 
creature on the spot. 

“ NTo,” said Elizabeth, “ nothing is the matter, and 
that, in a way, is the worst of it. I have only fright- 
ened myself with my own fancies. Ah ! ” she added, 


272 


MRS. LORIMER. 


putting out her hands with a weary, despairing gesture, 
“ it is all too big for me.” 

A good-looking young man and an unusually hand- 
some, well-dressed woman, standing and talking ear- 
nestly together in the twilight, are pretty sure to attract 
attention and suggest interesting but somewhat peculiar 
comments. Just as Elizabeth spoke, two men passed, 
and Wharton heard one of them laugh, as he moved 
away, and make some observation to his companion. 
Immediately Mrs. Frank Lorimer and all the outraged 
social proprieties rushed into his mind. 

“Hadn’t we better walk on, Mrs. Lorimer?” he 
said, hastily. “ I’m afraid it may look a little odd for 
us to be standing here, so.” 

The observation jarred unpleasantly upon Elizabeth. 
It seemed so cold and unsympathetic. When Wharton 
suddenly appeared before her in the midst of her loneli- 
ness and distress, she had turned to him with a sense of 
comfort and security. She had come nearer changing 
friendship into a tenderer feeling than at any previous 
moment of their acquaintance. How his words almost 
seemed to imply that she had gone too far. She re- 
membered her fears regarding the cause of his disap- 
pearance ; she recalled the gossip which, she knew, had 
gone about concerning their connection. Elizabeth’s 
pride came to her rescue. She entirely recovered her 
self-possession, and turning, walked rapidly toward 
home. 

“ I am glad to see you, Mr. Wharton,” she said after 
a minute or two, with a certain coldness and dignity of 
manner — “ because I am going abroad the day after to- 
morrow. I shall probably be away all the summer. 
We have seen a good deal of each other, you know, at 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 273 


different times ; and I am glad to have this opportunity 
of saying good-by to you.’’ 

Wharton observed the change of tone. Mentally he 
cursed Mrs. Frank Lorimer. He was, also, immensely 
surprised at the information Elizabeth gave him. It 
would simplify matters for her to go away, and yet 
somehow Wharton was conscious that he felt very 
sorry. 

“ But why are you going ? ” he asked ; this is so 
unexpected to me. Must you really go ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, I must go,” answered Elizabeth. “ I have 
let my house for the season. I must go, and, indeed, I 
believe I should be very sorry not to go.” 

Wharton could not understand it. They walked on 
in silence for a minute or two, then he said, rather in- 
consequently : 

“I brought you some white flowers the last time 
I was at your house — that afternoon when you came in 
late. I have wondered, once or twice since, whether 
you ever had them.” 

“ Fanny Lorimer was holding them,” answered Eliza- 
beth, “ when I came in. She seemed to wish for them. 
They were not really mine to give, but I let her keep 
them.” 

She walked on quickly. She was anxious to get 
home as soon as possible, and not to prolong their 
Ute-d-tete for a moment more than was actually neces- 
sary. Just as they arrived at the house, Elizabeth 
turned to her companion ; her expression was some- 
what hard, all the gentleness had gone out of her face. 

“You remember our compact?” she said. “You 
have taught me something about friendship in the last 
eighteen months, and I thank you. It has been interest- 


274 


MRS. LORIMER. 


iDg. It is a very pretty game ; only, unfortunately, it 
seems people so soon get tired of playing it.” 

Then she held out her hand to him. “ Good-by, Mr. 
Wharton,” she said. 

Wharton ought to have been glad ; things were 
certainly turning up ; it would be very easy for him to 
accept the ruling of events, and avoid further complica- 
tions ; yet, so perverse is the heart of man, he felt any- 
thing but satisfied. In point of fact, he felt rather 
desperate. 

‘‘ But sha’n’t I see you again ? I must see you 
again,” he said. 

“ I shall be engaged all to-morrow,” answered Eliza- 
beth, coldly. 

“Not in the evening,” said Wharton. “Surely I 
may come in in the evening.” 

Elizabeth rang the door-bell. She was silent for a 
moment ; but, just as Martha opened the door from 
within, she turned to Wharton and answered him 
quickly. 

“Yes,” she said, “ you can come in in the evening, if 
you want to.” 

Then she passed into the house. On the hall-table 
lay a gentleman’s visiting-card. Elizabeth picked it up 
languidly, and moved under the lamp to read it. 

It bore a name she remembered very well — the 
name of Mr. Edward Dadley. 


CHAPTER VIIL 

“For auld lang syne.” 


As a traveler, lingering in tBe dusty, glaring streets 
of some far-off southern city, and hearing suddenly a 
few bars of an old, well-remembered tune, is carried 
back in fancy, across land and sea, to the cool English 
air and soft green English landscape, to home, and the 
simple vivid joys and sorrows of childhood, to those 
clear early days that seem to have no shadows and no 
perspective ; and, being thus carried back in fancy,' feels 
a sense of repose and quiet and security stealing over 
his whole being — so Elizabeth, seeing Edward Hadley’s 
name thus unexpectedly in the midst of her loneliness, 
and confusion, and disappointment, was filled with a 
certain vague hope of rest and contentment. 

It has been said that first love is infinite and has no 
second like to it. The latter part of the proposition, I 
fancy, most people will be willing enough to assent to, 
whatever they may hold concerning the first part of it. 
Assertions regarding infinity are easier to make than to 
sustain, as a rule. But first love has no second like to 
it, for it is an initiation into the mysteries, and must 
ever after exercise a strange and subtle influence over 
the mind. It is of the nature of a revelation ; for the 
first time we worship in the temple face to face with 


276 


MRS. LORIMER. 


our divinity. Many of us worship pretty freely in that 
temple afterward. We get to know nearly every nook 
and corner of the building. W e grow more or less accus- 
tomed to the passionate strains of music and to the rich 
odor of the incense ; we cease to be much impressed by 
the dim religious light.” Some of us even go further, 
and discover that the golden image of the goddess has 
feet of common clay ; that the singers and musicians 
have a tendency to gossip over the last bit of scandal, 
and even to eat oranges, during the intervals of the 
services ; and that the incense itself may be bought ex- 
tremely cheap in the market-place just outside. Yet, 
notwithstanding the trying disillusionments which come 
to us with time and knowledge, very few of us can re- 
gard with entii-e indifference the man or woman who 
first drew aside for us the curtain that shrouds the tem- 
ple door ; who showed us for the first time the eternal 
loveliness of the goddess ; and taught us first how to 
move within that mysterious inner circle of perception 
and emotion which is commonly called love. 

Elizabeth Lorimer’s first lover — the man who had, 
for good or evil, first drawn aside the curtain for her — 
was a fresh-faced young Englishman of a common 
enough type — clean-limbed, tender-hearted, willing to 
adore, and quite incapable of understanding the depth or 
the breadth of her character. He was not a very remark- 
able or admirable young man. He hunted, and fished, 
and made love, and talked rudimentary politics over a 
good bottle of claret after dinner, in a very common- 
place way. He was not in the least troubled with ideas. 
Hay, further, when called upon by his father to do so, 
he had, after something of a struggle, followed the very 
sensible, if unromantic, example of Gibbon, the histo- 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 277 


rian, and while he “ sighed as a lover ” had obeyed as 
a son.” Elizabeth’s pride had revolted at his desertion 
of her ; had revolted so strongly that it hurried her, as 
we have seen, into a marriage with Robert Lorimer. 
In a way, she might put down all the troubles of her 
young life to Edward Dadley’s account ; and yet — yet 
the memory of first love is very strong. 

Coming in from her dreary walk on the Embank- 
ment, parting half in anger from her friend on the door- 
step, Elizabeth suffered a strange transition of feeling 
when she found Edward Dadley’s card on the hall-table. 
She had not seen him for four years. She did not know 
anything about his present circumstances. She did not 
even know whether he was married or single : but she 
was filled with a longing to meet him once again ; to 
go back, for a few hours at least, to that pleasant, easy 
time before she had known anything practically of sor- 
row or disappointment. She longed to breathe the 
morning air again, after struggling in the heat and con- 
fusion of the noonday. Everything seemed to be slip- 
ping away from her just now. A foolish hope, a half- 
despairing fancy, that somehow a meeting with her old 
lover might make things clear and straight, came over 
her. Elizabeth knew dimly all the while that she was 
ignoring the lessons of experience ; that she was fight- 
ing against fate ; that she was refusing to acknowl- 
edge an inevitable conclusion. It may seem a little 
stupid of any person to do this ; and yet, to my mind, 
there is something wonderfully moving in the gallant, 
hopeless determination with which the young fight 
against the hard teachings of fact and experience. 
They may be fools. They are fools, no doubt ; but 
they are fools whom One suffers gladly, for love of 


278 


MRS. LORIMER. 


their magnificent obstinacy and finely-tempered cour- 
age. 

Elizabeth went slowly up-stairs, with the visiting- 
card still in her hand. She felt a little reckless — the 
world seemed, in a way, to be coming to an end the 
day after to-morrow. Meanwhile she would defy fate ; 
she would do what she liked ; she would give herself 
one last chance. She would see Edward Dadley some- 
how. And if nothing came of it ? — and in justice to 
poor Elizabeth, it must be owned that she had formed 
no clear idea as to what could possibly come of it — 
well, then, she thought, bitterly enough, she would have 
to own herself beaten, and let the world come to an 
end as soon as it pleased. 

“ At last ! ” said Mrs. Frank Lorimer, in her clear, 
emphatic voice, as Elizabeth entered the drawing-room. 
“My dear Elizabeth, where in the name of patience 
have you been ? I have been waiting here the most in- 
terminable length of time to see you.” 

Fanny Lorimer had a great power of letting plain, 
uncompromising daylight into the minds of other peo- 
ple ; but Elizabeth was too highly wrought — too en- 
tirely occupied with her own sensations — to be awakened 
even by her sister-in-law’s rapid and decided opening of 
the shutters just at present. 

“ I have been walking, down by the river,” she an- 
swered, abstractedly. 

“ Dear me ! ” said Mrs. Frank, “ doesn’t it strike 
you that it is just a little late for you to be out walking 
alone ? ” 

“ I wasn’t alone,” observed Elizabeth, simply. 

“ Oh ? ” said Mrs. Frank, with a note of interroga- 
tion in her voice. 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 279 


She looked rather hard at Elizabeth ; she had an 
impression that there was something odd about her. 
She wondered if anything could have happened. 

“I met Mr. Wharton,” said Elizabeth, with the 
same air of indifference and abstraction ; “ and he 
walked back here with me.” 

A sudden cheerful alertness seemed to take posses- 
sion of Fanny Lorimer’s small person. Fred Wharton 
had come back, then, and just in time. She hardly 
knew how to be sufficiently thankful. She had not 
made a fatal mistake, after all. Elizabeth seemed 
strangely preoccupied ; but that Mrs. Frank was 
charmed at — it certainly meant, she argued, that some- 
thing had happened, or was just about to happen. 
Everything was really going right, then. She had 
hardly realized before how dreadfully anxious Fred 
Wharton’s absence had made her. Her present sense 
of relief was intensely exhilarating. She smiled a little 
to herself, and folded her small neat hands restfully on 
her lap as she said, quietly : 

‘^You have an admirable indifference to public opin- 
ion, really, Elizabeth. You know the circumstances 
and surroundings of your walk might strike some peo- 
ple as slightly peculiar.” 

If Fanny Lorimer had failed to awaken Elizabeth at 
first, she certainly succeeded in doing so very complete- 
ly now. Elizabeth turned toward her with a sense of 
considerable annoyance. 

“ What do you mean ? ” she asked, quickly. 

Only that you are young and very good-looking,” 
answered the other ; “ and that of course you run the 
risk of being talked about. You know everybody does 
that, unless they are immensely careful.” 


280 


MBS. LOEIMER. 


Elizabetli had not expected this sort of open attach. 
It seemed to her that Fanny Lorimer was playing ex- 
actly the same part that Mrs. Mainwaring had played 
two years before. It is interesting to observe how his- 
tory repeats itself ; but there are some experiences none 
of us desire particularly to go through twice, even for 
the sake of proving the truth of that valuable saying. 

The drawing-room was warm after the cold damp 
air of the evening outside. Elizabeth felt both mentally 
and physically stifled. She had a sense of heat, and 
crowding, and confusion. Ho doubt her state of mind 
was exaggerated ; but hers was a nature prone to exag- 
geration. Fanny Lorimer’s words intensified all her 
distressing feelings. She felt as though she was caught 
in a great spider’s web ; the delicate, almost invisible 
threads clung about her, impeding her movement, al- 
most choking her ; wrapping her relentlessly and hope- 
lessly round with their thin compelling strength. She 
struggled against this paralyzing sensation ; she deter- 
mined angrily, come what might, to see Edward Dadley 
again. 

‘‘ This room is intolerably hot,” she said, for all an- 
swer to her sister-in-law’s strictures upon her conduct. 

“The fire is large,” replied Fanny Lorimer, calmly. 
“I suppose your maids are anxious to finish up your 
whole stock of coals before they go. Maids always re- 
gard incoming tenants as their natural enemies. They 
can’t bear leaving a scrap of anything for their succes- 
sors. I fancy we are all inclined to be a little preju- 
diced against our successors.” 

“ The heat is intolerable,” said Elizabeth again. 

She moved across the room hastily and threw one of 
the windows wide open, letting in a rush of rain-laden 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 281 


westerly wind, which made the heavy curtains flap and 
the candles flicker. 

“ Oh I what a fearful draught ! ” cried Mrs. Frank, 
putting up both hands to keep a little of the unex- 
pected blast from her face. “ For pity’s sake, Eliza- 
beth, shut down that window, and come and speak to 
me like a reasonable creature ! If you want to give me 
something, pray let it be something more agreeable 
than a violent cold in my head.” 

Elizabeth shut the window down slowly. The cold 
air and the physical exertion had done her good. She 
felt less excited and bewildered, yet more determined 
than ever to have her own way, in one matter, at least. 
She sat down quietly, and looked at Edward Dadley’s 
card again. She observed that he had scribbled the 
name of the hotel at which he was staying in the cor- 
ner of it. 

‘‘NTow that the whirlwind has ceased,” said Mrs. 
Frank, unbuttoning her long gloves with great compos- 
ure, I may as well tell you what I came here on pur- 
pose to say. Frank wants you to come over to dinner 
to-night. To-morrow he’ll be busy all day. You real- 
ly must come back me with me this evening, Elizabeth. 
We’!! have a lovely time putting the babies to bed be- 
fore dinner. Now you’ll please Frank and come, won’t 
you ? ” 

There was something soothing in the thought of 
those two small, prattling, curly-headed creatures in 
their little white night-gowns. They seemed to belong 
to the same simple, unperplexed side of life as Ed- 
ward Dadley. There was a sweet, though sad, ex- 
pression on Elizabeth’s face as she answered Fanny 
Lorimer. 


282 


MRS. LORIMER. 


‘‘Yes,” she said, “I’ll come gladly — especially to 
see the babies.” 

Mrs. Frank looked at her intently for a moment. 

“You certainly are a very attractive woman,” Eliza- 
beth,” she remarked. “ There is a great deal of cachet 
about you. I enjoy immensely having you to think 
about, though I don’t pretend to understand you. I 
hope you won’t do anything very extraordinary while 
you are abroad. I should be so sorry not to be present 
if you do anything extraordinary. Pray keep it till the 
summer, till I come out to you.” 

Elizabeth always disliked these intimate reflections 
of her sister-in-law’s. 

“ I suppose I shall see you to-morrow evening again,” 
she said, ignoring Mrs. Frank’s last remarks. 

“Ah ! my dear Elizabeth,” rejoined the other, “that 
is really dreadful. Flow I must confess all my sins. I 
ought to have done it before ; but something put it out 
of my head. I really have been a fearful idiot — I quite 
forgot it was your last day. Will you ever forgive 
me ? ” she added, with a very bright smile and charm- 
ing little air of penitence. “ It was horribly stupid of 
me ; but I made an engagement for to-morrow evening.” 

“ Then you won’t be able to come here ? ” inquired 
Elizabeth. 

Fanny Lorimer’s observations regarding her walk 
with Fred Wharton had made her acutely uncomfort- 
able again. One of the very last things she desired was 
to spend an evening alone with him — still less did she 
want him to be third wheel to the cart if Edward Dad- 
ley came, as she intended that he should. 

“ Oh, we’ll come in for half an hour,” said Fanny 
Lorimer. 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 


283 


It struck her some arrangement might he pending 
with Wharton. She did not at all want him to be put off. 

Don’t alter any plans for us. We’ll certainly come 
in. W e haven’t to go to our affair till late ; and of 
course we should have come to say good-by, anyway. 
l!?^ow, Elizabeth, do come back with me at once,” she 
added, getting up ; “ I’m sure you needn’t change your 
gown. It is grand enough to receive the whole of the 
peerage in — and Frank and I are very simple people, 
you know.” 

Elizabeth paused a moment before answering. She 
looked tired and pale, and yet her eyes were unusually 
bright. 

“ My dear creature, it will be long past the chil- 
dren’s bed-time if you’re not quick,” said Fanny Lori- 
mer, a little impatiently. 

‘‘ Oh, just give me two minutes,” cried Elizabeth. 

I must write a note : I won’t be long.” 

Mrs. Frank felt that things were serious. She was 
playing her game altogether in the dark. She felt that 
it was necessary to be cautious. 

“ I’ll wait,” she said. “ But pray don’t put anybody 
off on account of our engagement. We can quite well 
come in for a time to-morrow evening.” 

Elizabeth moved quickly into the other room and 
sat down at the writing-table. Fanny Lorimer waited, 
slowly buttoning up her gloves again. She was a 
good deal interested in the thought of Elizabeth’s note. 
She felt very curious to know whether it would be ad- 
dressed to Fred Wharton or not. She heard Elizabeth 
writing hurriedly for a minute or two. Then there 
was a pause, followed by the sound of paper being 
sharply torn up, and the fluttering noise of it as it fell 


284 


MRS. LORIMER. 


into the paper-basket. Mrs. Frank remembered those 
little sounds afterward. She never quite understood 
why they had a special significance for her ; but she 
never could hear them in a quiet room without thinking 
of Elizabeth’s pale, tired face and bright «yes, and of 
the damp, gusty evening when she waited so long for 
her to come in from her walk by the river. 

There was a sound of writing again. Then Eliza- 
beth got up from her seat at the table. 

‘‘ I’ll be ready in five minutes, Fanny,” she said as 
she went out of the room. 

The adage says that there are more ways of killing 
a cat than by choking her with cream. There are more 
ways, certainly, of learning the destination of a letter 
than by asking the writer of it point-blank for whom 
it is intended. 

Mrs. Frank Lorimer remembered that there was 
some delightfully quaint china on the mantel-shelf in 
the back drawing-room. She had often, she thought, 
wished to examine it. She strolled into the other room. 
— The china of course was the object in view, but she 
was obliged to pass close to the writing-table. On the 
open blotting-book lay Elizabeth’s note. The candles 
were burning brightly, and Elizabeth’s handwriting 
was large and distinct. Mrs. Frank could not help see- 
ing the address. It surprised her very much. She had 
never heard of Edward Dadley before in her life. She 
had made almost sure that Elizabeth was writing to 
Fred Wharton. This little discovery put out all her 
calculations ; yet perhaps it intensified the interest of 
the situation. Fanny Lorimer decided that she and 
Frank would certainly spend half an hour with Eliza- 
beth next evening. 


CHAPTER IX. 


“ And sometimes, by still harder fate, 

The lovers meet, but meet too late.” 

Whaeton passed anything hut a comfortable day. 
He had a long sitting in the morning from the afore- 
mentioned Mrs. Ostler Westcott, a very pretty young 
woman who was just making a reputation in certain 
circles of society for her beauty. Generally Wharton 
enjoyed his work heartily, but to-day somehow he did 
not feel at all in the humor for it. He seemed quite 
unable to make satisfactory progress ; he was both ir- 
ritable and preoccupied, and gave his fair sitter some 
excuse for announcing later to her little court of friends, 
rivals, and admirers, that “Mr. Wharton was really 
rather a dull young man, and that she, for her part, 
considered both him and his drawings immensely over- 
rated.” In the afternoon Wharton, feeling that he 
must occupy himself somehow, decided to go out and 
make some calls ; but, on second thoughts, he arrived 
at the melancholy conclusion that there were not any 
members of his acquaintance whom it would give him 
the smallest pleasure to see at this moment. Formerly 
he had very thoroughly enjoyed his own society ; but 
times had changed sadly with him lately. He was be- 
ginning to find himself a very poor companion ; now 


286 


MRS. LORIMER. 


and then lie went so. far, indeed, as to vote himself an 
intolerable bore. 

When the time arrived for him to present himself 
at Mrs. Lorimer’s, he felt as wretchedly uncertain and 
undecided as ever. The sudden outburst of strong feel- 
ing which had carried him away for a time, when he 
first met Elizabeth the night before, had died down 
again. He really could not tell the least now, whether 
he was in love with her or not. He fancied a certain 
feeling was there ; but it wanted some striking circum- 
stances to develop it and make it active. And how 
unlikely, thought Wharton dismally, were any striking 
circumstances to surround his meeting with Elizabeth 
this evening ! The Frank Lorimers would be there. 
Everything would be just as usual. He would, most 
likely, play a little ; Elizabeth would probably be tired, 
and would not talk much. Then they would all say 
good-by, and everything would go on just the same 
as ever. It was very annoying. Wharton had often 
laughed at his own peculiarities ; but he had always 
done so in a very sympathetic spirit. He really cher- 
ished and respected all his oddities and little affecta- 
tions. He thought himself pleasantly original. To- 
day he laughed at himself rather bitterly. There 
was a spice of contempt in his amusement. He was 
not sure that he was not a very poor creature, after 
all. Such a state of mind is far from exhilarating. 
Wharton knew that his evening-coat was faultless in 
fit, that his shirt was a miracle of ironing, that his 
collar was eminently the right thing, that he was in 
every way an unusually good-looking fellow ; yet, 
for all that, he was a thoroughly depressed and un- 
happy young gentleman as he walked into Elizabeth 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 287 

Lorimer’s pretty drawing-room on this memorable even- 
ing. 

Once inside the door, he stopped, utterly surprised 
and forgetful of his own little troubles, to contemplate 
his hostess — over whom a remarkable change seemed to 
have come. 

Elizabeth was standing in the middle of the room, 
with her head thrown back, and a curiously intense ex- 
pression on her face, as if she was listening for some 
expected sound. In her hands she held a long rosary 
of large brown wooden beads, with a roughly-carved 
crucifix hanging from it. She stood twisting the beads 
about in her fingers with a strange, restless move- 
ment. 

Elizabeth had come across the rosary that day — as 
she was looking over some drawers, in a cabinet in her 
bedroom. It had been put away there a long time be- 
fore, and she had almost forgotten the fact of its exist- 
ence ; but, seeing it again, she remembered very clearly 
the circumstances under which it had come into her 
possession. Robert Lorimer had given it to her. She 
remembered, as if it were but yesterday, the sparkling 
beryl-green lake, the purple mountains sleeping in the 
still summer sunshine ; the gray walls of the monastery 
in the foreground, with trailing creepers, and delicate 
ferns, and great masses of crimson valerian, masking 
the rugged sternness of their masonry ; the laughing 
Savoyard boatman, in his blue shirt, with a bunch of 
red roses stuck in his rather dilapidated hat, lying lazily 
on his back in the long, rank grass ; the quaint little 
booth just outside the monastery gate, where a gentle, 
patient-looking lay-brother, in sandals and a rough brown 
habit, set out his small wares — henitiers^ rosaries, strings 


288 


MES. LOPJMER. 


of beads, little tin vii’gins, emblems of local and patron 
saints — ^to tempt the handsome young English couple 
who had just rowed across the glittering lake from the 
gay French watering-place on the other side ; while far 
away down in the south the rugged crest of the Mont 
Cenis, awful in its loneliness and the immaculate purity 
of its whiteness, rose up into the deep-blue sky, block- 
ing the way to the passion and the romance of lovely 
Italy. Elizabeth, remembered the scene and the day 
clearly. It was one of those days that stand out from 
the experience of a lifetime — a day on which, it seemed 
to her, she had come very near grasping the jDhantom 
of happiness which it had been her fate — or her sin, 
poor child — so constantly and vainly to pursue. 

Now, in the hour of her need, she found this rough 
wooden rosary again, and with it she found a store of 
gracious and tender memories. A half-superstitious 
fancy that it might help her in trouble, save her in 
temptation, shield her from evil, came over her ; and, 
with an unreasoning faith in its protecting virtues, she 
brought it down-stairs with her, and held it in her hands 
when her guest came into the room. 

But the rosary only attracted Wharton’s attention, 
when he first looked at her, from the strange contrast it 
formed, with its old-world suggestions of sorrow and 
pain and penitence, to the rest of Elizabeth’s appear- 
ance. She was dressed in a gown of soft ivory-white 
cashmere, plentifully trimmed with rich old lace. The 
sleeves of the dress were short, with falling ruffles of 
lace, leaving her arms bare from the elbow. The neck 
of it was open, with a soft ruffle of lace around it too. 
On her arms were gold bracelets, and round her throat 
a gold chain with a square gold cross ; on her bosom 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 289 


was a bunch of deep-red hot-house flowers, roses and 
crimson amaryllis. 

There was nothing very extraordinary about Eliza- 
beth’s dress, after all. Indeed, it was in a much sim- 
pler style than that which she usually affected. It was 
the change from black to white which struck Wharton 
so forcibly. He thought she looked younger and gen- 
tler, more of a girl and less of a woman ; while the 
strangely pathetic quality of her beauty seemed in a 
way intensified and deepened. Wharton felt as if she 
could not be the same woman that he had parted with, 
on the damp doorstep, the night before. She seemed 
changed altogether. He did not know whether he quite 
liked the change or not. There was a restless brilliance 
in her eyes and a clear, burning red in her cheeks. As 
Wharton looked at her in her white dress, with the ro- 
sary in her hands, he had a strange sense that there was 
some terrible sacrifice about to be accomplished, and 
that this fair woman was the victim. 

Elizabeth laid the rosary down quickly on the table, 
and then received him with a pretty show of cordiality. 
But it seemed to Wharton that there was a hint of 
coming disaster in her very brightness, which pained 
and perplexed him. 

“ I feel a little to-night,” said Elizabeth, smiling as 
she held out her hand to him, “ as if I was bidding my 
farewell to the stage. I am taking leave of my audi- 
ence ; I am going to retire into private life. I want to 
leave a good impression on the public mind — for the 
public, on the whole, has been very kind to me. You 
see I have arrayed myself in dainty new garments, and 
filled my rooms with sweet spring fiowers. You shall 
sing your good-by song to-night, and then the curtain 
13 


290 


MES. LORIMER. 


will come down, and the lights will he put out ; and I 
may he foolish — hut I have a presentiment, Mr. Whar- 
ton, that it will he altogether adieu, and not au revoir, 
to this poor player.” 

Elizabeth said the last few words softly, and with a 
touch of earnestness which was a little disagreeable to 
Wharton. He thought she seemed feverish and over- 
excited ; for once he became extremely practical and 
full of common sense. 

“You’ve been doing too much, and you’re tired, 
Mrs. Lorimer,” he answered. “ I’ve had dozens and 
dozens of presentiments which subsequent events proved 
to be entirely false, for one that has really come true.” 

Elizabeth looked down for a minute ; then she 
smiled at him rather defiantly. 

“Very well, then,” she said, “if you object to pre- 
sentiments so much, we’ll forget all about them. W e’ll 
pretend to be very cheerful and encouraging, and talk 
about the beauties of Switzerland, and the charms of 
foreign travel, and the relief of avoiding a season in 
London. I wish to be most accommodating, as I shall 
not probably see you again for a long while. But I 
must honestly tell you that I don’t think the country 
has quite agreed with you somehow. I fancy the March 
winds have blown away a good deal of your usual ur- 
banity.” 

Decidedly Elizabeth Lorimer was not like herself 
to-night. Wharton looked at her curiously. 

“ Things have not gone quite so well with me lately 
as they usually do, Mrs. Lorimer,” he said. “.I have 
had a number of new experiences — interesting, no 
doubt, from -one point of view, but not wholly agree- 
able all the same.” 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 291 

That’s a pity,” answered Elizabeth, quickly ; she 
seemed to have a sort of necessity for talking. ‘‘I 
don’t think your new experiences have quite suited you. 
You have been working a little too hard at them possi- 
bly. Your cachet^ as Fanny would say, is certainly tO' 
be serene.” 

And I have been anything but serene,” Wharton 
rejoined. “ I have been dreadfully worried and both- 
ered. I have been utterly unphilosophic and — ” 

But there he stopped. Martha was announcing 
somebody. Elizabeth made a rapid movement toward 
the door, then seemed to think better of it, and stood 
still. Wharton looked sharply at her ; her breath was 
coming quickly, and the two spots of color on her 
cheeks burned brighter than ever. 

Cause and effect often seem to a bystander to be 
rather disproportionate. Edward Dadley, as he entered 
the room, certainly did not strike Wharton as a very 
agitating individual. He was a tall, well-made man, of 
about eight-and-twenty, to judge by his looks. Even 
in his evening clothes there was a faint and distant 
suggestion of the stable about him, and his trousers 
undoubtedly were rather unnecessarily tight — a fresh 
complexion, bluish - gray eyes, a fair mustache, and 
features calling for no particular comment — a kindly, 
trustworthy, unimaginative young gentleman, with a 
profound knowledge of horses and dogs, and sport in 
all its branches ; with a disposition, probably, to hold 
art, and books, and music in slight contempt, and to un- 
dervalue the more cultivated side of life generally ; but 
still honest and loyal-hearted, and acknowledged uni- 
versally in his own set to be a “ thoroughly good fel- 
low.” 


292 


MRS. LORIMER. 


He came forward toward Elizabeth with a frank, 
cheery smile. 

‘‘ It’s very kind of you to ask me to come and see 
you in this sort of way, Mrs. Lorimer,” he said, shaking 
hands with her. “I was awfully sorry to miss you 
yesterday.” 

‘‘ I wished very much to see you again,” answered 
Elizabeth. 

Wharton stood watching her. He fancied there was 
something constrained and unnatural in her manner. 
She was generally so composed, and almost stately, in 
her bearing, that her present restlessness struck him all 
the more forcibly. 

‘‘ I am going abroad to-morrow, so that I could not 
leave the matter to chance. I thought you would 
forgive my short and informal invitation.” 

Elizabeth said this prettily, looking up at the tall 
young man before her. Wharton did not enjoy the 
situation in the least. 

‘‘ I was only too delighted to come, I’m sure,” said 
Mr. Hadley, very cordially. 

Then he looked rather hard at Wharton. He seemed 
to expect the latter to speak to him. 

Whether from nervousness or from some subtle feel- 
ing of the incongruity of the position, Elizabeth could 
not make up her mind to introduce the two men to 
each other. There was an awkward pause. Hadley 
was the first to speak. His voice was rather loud and 
noisy. Wharton noted the fact ; he was disposed to be 
observant of all this man’s shortcomings. 

“ You always seem to be going abroad, Mrs. Lori- 
mer,” he said. “ I called here about — well, let’s see — 
last September two years I believe it was, just before I 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 293 


went to America. You know IVe been to America ? ” 
he added, with an air of simple importance which edi- 
fied Wharton considerably. 

No,” she said, “ I didn’t know it.” 

‘‘Yes,” Dudley went on, “ I have, though, Mrs. Lori- 
mer. I had a very jolly time. A lot of sport. Every- 
body goes to the Rocky Mountains to shoot now, you 
know. It’s quite the right thing. — ^You’ve been, I sup- 
pose ? ” he added, turning suddenly, with an inquiring 
glance, to Wharton. 

“No,” he answered, quite slowly, fixing his eyes 
meanwhile on Mr. Dudley’s boots. “ I don’t shoot ; and 
I always avoid doing the right thing on principle. 
It’s a little — shall we say — unimaginative, to do the 
right thing.” 

Wharton looked up at Elizabeth as he said the last 
few words. There was something of surprise and dis- 
appointment in her expression ; and she did not seem 
to hear what he was saying. 

Mr. Dudley stared at the last speaker for a minute, 
with an air of slight bewilderment. Then he seemed to 
conclude that Wharton had intended to be amusing, and 
laughed a little, in a civil, perfunctory manner. 

“But I was going to tell you, Mrs. Lorimer,” he 
said, turning again to Elizabeth, “ that when I called 
here before, you were abroad then. And they said 
something about illness, and I felt awfully sorry. I 
hope you weren’t ill, Mrs. Lorimer ? ” 

The color died out of Elizabeth’s cheeks. 

“No, no,” she said, quickly. “It was not I that 
was ill.” 

“I’m uncommonly glad of that,” remarked Mr. 
Dudley. 


294 


MES. LOEIMER. 


He really looked quite relieved ; but he continued 
to turn questioning glances upon Fred Wharton. The 
young squire seemed to find something singularly per- 
plexing in the aspect of Elizabeth’s other guest. 

Wharton felt nettled by this inspection. This man, 
he supposed, was some old friend of Mrs. Lorimer’s ; 
possibly a distant cousin ; perhaps they had played to- 
gether when they both wore short frocks and pina- 
fores — that thought was not wholly palatable to him. 
But they were far enough apart now, anyway, and the 
man, whoever he was, had no right to presume upon his 
old acquaintance with Mrs. Lorimer. His knowing her 
when she wore pinafores — if he had done so — ^by no 
means justified his staring, in that unmitigated sort of 
fashion, at her present friends. 

Wharton moved away and sat down in an arm-chair 
by the fireplace — ^the same in which Elizabeth had sat 
when Mr. Leeper expended all the powers of his elo- 
quence in trying to convert her to the Cause and into Mrs. 
Leeper. Wharton felt far from amiable ; two are com- 
pany, and three are none. He had a very distinct feel- 
ing that he was the third just now. He began idly re- 
arranging some tall white narcissus-blossoms, that stood 
in a glass jar on a little table at his side. The flowers 
were very sweet. Elizabeth had filled all the vases and 
pots with them ; and the air of the rooms was heavy 
and faint with their perfume. If he must needs be 
third, Wharton was determined at least to appear un- 
conscious of representing that generally unwelcome 
member. But as he leaned back in the arm-chair, 
and, with half -closed eyes, watched his fair hostess and 
the tall young squire, his in-itation grew stronger and 
stronger. Wharton was generally very respectful and 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD WHITE. 295 


tender toward all living things. The sight of a flower 
lying, fading in the hot dust of the street, among scraps 
of paper and rubbish, caused him actual pain. This 
evening he was possessed with a curiously vindictive 
feeling ; and, as he noted every word and motion of the 
white-robed Elizabeth and that objectionable young 
man, he pulled one or two narcissus-blossoms to pieces, 
in the most wanton and hard-hearted fashion. 

Elizabeth had moved across the room, and seated 
herself rather wearily in a chair on the other side of the 
fireplace, nearly opposite to Wharton. Edward Dadley 
having discovered a solid and somewhat elevated seat, 
drew it up beside her and sat down, too, giving the legs 
of his trousers a little hitch up just above the knee as 
he did so, and asking a number of questions regarding 
Claybrooke at the same time. 

“ That’s an awfully nice old house of your uncle’s, 
Mrs. Lorimer,” he said. ‘‘ I was wonderfully fond of 
Claybrooke, you know. I wanted my father not to sell 
that little place of poor Aunt Maria’s, but he would do 
it. He’s a capital fellow in his way— my father,” added 
Mr. Dadley, meditatively ; ‘‘but I always have thought 
him awfully pig-headed.” 

Elizabeth smiled faintly. 

“Yes, he is frightfully pig-headed,” Dadley went 
on, with an air of strong conviction. “If he wants 
you to do a thing, he never leaves you alone till it’s 
done. Isn’t there something about a man bearing a 
yoke in his youth? Upon my word, Mrs. Lorimer, 
that’s just what I’ve had to do. I’ve never had my 
own way yet about anything.” 

Edward Dadley leaned a little toward Elizabeth, and 
looked full Ut her as he said this. Then he suddenly 


29G 


MRS. LORIMER. 


seemed to remember Wliarton’s presence again, and 
cast a sharp glance toward him. 

Wharton happened to raise his eyes at the moment, 
and they met Mr. Dadley’s. He felt singularly disa- 
greeable. He gave an insolent little yawn, and said, 
slowly : 

“ I dare say it has been very good for you.” 

‘‘ It hasn’t been pleasant, anyway,” answered Dad- 
ley, shortly, and turned to Elizabeth again. 

‘‘ Have any of these Harbage girls married yet, hlrs. 
Lorimer ? ” he went on. “ Poor old Harbage ! I used 
to feel awfully sorry for him, you know. He really 
was a very good old sort ; but Mrs. Harbage was an 
awful woman. It used to make me perfectly sick to 
see the way she crammed those wretched girls down 
every man’s throat ; and poor old Harbage used to get 
so hot and miserable, and yet he always did exactly 
what she told him. That woman was a caution, you 
know.” 

Elizabeth smiled again. 

Everything goes on just the same down there,” 
she said. ‘‘ People never seem to change at all in Mid- 
landshire.” 

‘‘ I wonder if the wagonette with the canary-colored 
body and wheels is going still ? ” said Dadley, laughing. 
“ It was the finest thing out to see poor old Harbage 
driving that wagonette, with Mrs. Harbage and all the 
little Harbages inside. Then do you remember that 
dance at the Adnitts’ at Lowcote,” he continued, throw- 
ing himself back in his chair, sticking his long legs 
straight out in front of him, and tucking his fingers 
into his trousers-pockets. “ What a nice dance that was ! 
I don’t believe I’ve ever enjoyed a ball so much since.” 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 297 


Edward Dadley paused and sighed, as if the memo- 
ries of that hall were really almost too much for him. 

Elizabeth was evidently trying to bestow all her at- 
tention upon her guest. She looked tired and pale ; 
but she managed to keep up a certain show of interest 
in Mr. Dadley’s numerous reminiscences. 

Wharton, glancing across at her from his arm-chair, 
felt more irritable than ever. The conversation seemed 
to him in very poor taste. The young squire’s vocab- 
ulary was lamentably small. Wharton thought him 
rather a coarse-grained person. It was unendurable to 
suppose that he should be in any way connected with 
Mrs. Lorimer’s past life. Wharton pulled the head, 
quite savagely, off a narcissus-flower, as if that was to 
blame in some mysterious way for his present annoy- 
ances. 

‘‘Do you remember,” said Dadley again, turning 
toward Elizabeth — “do you remember, Mrs. Lorimer, 
the squire took a little too much of his own champagne 
at supper, and, just as we were all going away, he seized 
on poor, dear old Aunt Maria and dragged her out into 
the middle of the room, and said we’d have another Sir 
Roger? ’Pon my word, you know, I don’t believe I 
ever laughed so much in my life. Poor Aunt Maria 
was in the most awful state. Ah ! that was a good 
ball. Do you remember” — Wharton began to loathe 
that phrase — “ Charlie Melvin wanted you to give him 
a second valse, and you’d promised — all — ” 

Mr. Dadley checked himself suddenly, and cleared 
his throat, with a rather unsuccessful attempt at indif- 
ference, while he looked quickly across at W^harton 
again. It seemed to strike him suddenly that he might 
be going a little too far. 


29S 


MKS. LOEIMEK. 


Wharton had given over pulling the unfortunate 
flowers to pieces, and had picked up a book. He was 
not reading ; he was watching his companions quietly, 
and wondering whether it would not be much wiser and 
more dignified just to get up and go. He was evidently 
not wanted ; his position was a little ridiculous ; and 
yet there was something about Elizabeth’s appearance 
which made him very anxious to stay. There was a 
strangely blank look on her face which he could not 
understand. If she had merely looked bored, he would 
have thought it natural enough under the circumstances; 
but she looked something more than bored. Wharton 
had a conviction that a good deal was going on around 
him that he could not fathom at present. Then, Mrs. 
Lorimer was going away to-morrow. He put his dig- 
nity in his pocket, and decided to remain. 

I’ve never been back to Claybrooke since,” said 
Mr. Hadley, leaning toward Elizabeth slightly as he 
spoke. “ I’ve not seen any of the people for years. 
But sometimes I think, do you know, Mrs. Lorimer, 
that I never enjoyed any time in my life so much as 
those two winters.” 

Elizabeth’s face flushed slightly. She tried to smile ; 
but the attempt was not a very successful one. 

There was an uncomfortable silence. 

Hadley got up and stood with his hands behind him 
and his back to the mantel-piece — giving a little kick 
with each foot to settle his trousers down into their 
proper place over his knees. He cleared his throat 
again and looked at Wharton. 

‘‘ London’s uncommonly full for the time of year,” 
he remarked. 

“ Oh — er — were you speaking to me ? ” asked Fred 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 299 

Wharton, putting up his eyebrows slightly and shutting 
his hook. “ Perhaps London is full,” he added. “ I 
really don’t know. It’s not a subject I have very care- 
fully considered.” 

Edward Dadley contemplated the toes of his shoes 
for a moment : it is remarkable how much inspiration 
a certain class of men seem to derive from the contem- 
plation of their shoes. Then he looked at Elizabeth 
for a minute, rather regretfully. He was not an ob- 
servant person ; hut he was aware that he and his com- 
panions were at sixes and sevens. He was an honest- 
hearted fellow ; he believed that there was a mistake 
somewhere ; he feared that he was putting his hostess 
in a false position. He gave a little sigh, and then said : 

“ Well, I’m going to settle down at last, Mrs. Lori- 
mer. You’re such an old friend that I should like you 
just to wish me good luck, and all that sort of thing, 
you know.” 

He paused. 

I’m going to be married ; I’m going to marry my 
cousin. She’s a good little girl ; and — ” Again Dad- 
ley paused. “ I’m sure,” he went on, with a sort of 
rush, ‘‘if you should be coming up north any time, and 
would look us up, I’m sure I — I mean she, my cousin, 
you know — ^bother it — my wife and I should be only 
too happy to see you, and,” he added, looking toward 
Wharton, with a civil smile, “ your husband — ” 

Elizabeth started up ; she gave a low cry, as if in 
actual pain. 

“Husband?” she cried. “My husband? what do 
you mean ? ” 

Edward Dadley stared at her in utter amazement. 
He made a motion toward Wharton. 


300 


MES. LOEIMER. 


Why, Mr. Lorimer,” he said. 

Wharton had started up, too, with a smothered ex- 
clamation of a somewhat violent order. Could any- 
thing he much more disastrous, he thought, than to be 
taken for the dead husband of the woman you had more 
than half a mind to propose to ? He would have spok- 
en ; but he was absolutely dominated by the strength 
and power of Elizabeth’s emotion. 

She stood there, looking like some beautiful, wild 
creature, which, hopeless of escape, turns, with an ag- 
ony of despair and entreaty in its eyes, upon its pursu- 
ers. 

“ Ah ! ” she cried again, passionately. My hus- 
band ? You don’t know what you have said. You 
don’t know what you have done. And yet I ought to 
thank you, for you have shown me what I really am. 
My husband ? ” she stretched out both hands and then 
let them fall despairingly at her sides. Ah ! God 
help me ! ” she said. 

There was a depth of sorrow in the tones of her 
voice and in her gesture, which filled both men with 
pity. But Wharton, even in the midst of his pity, was 
sensible of the artistic beauty of her appearance. 
‘‘ What an effect on the stage ! ” he thought. Dadley 
was simply and utterly distressed. 

‘‘ God bless my soul ! ” he said, distractedly, “ what 
have I done ? ” 

Elizabeth could not control her voice sufficiently to 
answer. She looked at Wharton for a moment, and 
then turned away. 

Hush, hush ! ” said Wharton, “ haven’t you heard ? 
— don’t you know ? ” 

He glanced at Elizabeth. He had a horrible feeling 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD -WHITE. 301 


that he was going to wound or maim her in some way ; 
hut there was no alternative. 

“Mr. Lorimer died,” he said, very quietly and 
clearly, “ two years ago, in the south of France.” 

“ God bless my soul ! ” said Edward Dadley again. 
“ Nobody had told me. I didn’t know it.” 

The tears came into his eyes. He felt he would 
have given five years off his life — which was certainly 
generous, for men of Edward Hadley’s type distinctly 
prefer this world to the next — to have left those un- 
fortunate words unsaid. His old love for Elizabeth had 
stirred very strongly within him this evening. He was 
bound in honor to the “ good little girl ” up in the 
north ; but he told himself sadly that Mrs. Lorimer 
was the handsomest and most attractive woman he had 
ever known ; and he cursed the ill-luck which had pre- 
vented his hearing that she was free, till now, when he 
himself was bound. 


CHAPTER X. 


“ I fain would follow love, if that could be ; 

I needs must follow death, who calls for me.” 

There is but one step from tbe sublime to the ri- 
diculous, and it is really a very great relief to take that 
step sometimes. So, at least, Fred Wharton felt when, 
at this awkward and uncomfortable period of the even- 
ing, Mrs. Frank Lorimer rustled into the room. He 
had been anathematizing her pretty freely in private 
during the last month or six weeks ; but on this partic- 
ular occasion he was disposed to hail her advent as that 
of a veritable angel of deliv(?rance. 

Mrs. Frank was in a state of the most refreshing - 
self-complacency. She was wearing for the first time a 
new and very elaborate gown that had arrived from 
Paris the week before. She felt wonderfully urbane, 
and equal to almost any emergency. Her dress had a 
very long train to it, which, when she walked into the 
room and stopped suddenly in front ’of her hostess, 
caused her husband — who was following her closely — 
no small inconvenience. He had to perform a series of 
rather undignified little gymnastics in the background 
to avoid falling over, or otherwise damaging, the wil- 
derness of lace and flounces which barred his onward 
path. 

“ My dear Elizabeth, how fearfully ill you look ! ” 
exclaimed Mrs. Frank. 


A SKETCH IH BLACK AND WHITE. 303 


She glanced curiously at AYharton and Dadlcy as 
she spoke. She had not counted on finding three per- 
sons all looking embarrassed and agitated. Two she 
would not have minded finding in some such condition, 
but three seemed to her altogether one too many. 

“ What have you been doing ? ” she asked. 

There was an imploring expression on Elizabeth’s 
face which made her stop. Fanny Lorimer had plenty 
of tact -when she chose to use it. 

suppose it’s that white gown which makes you 
so pale. You must pardon my saying so, Elizabeth, 
but you know white is trying if one’s tired. And I 
dare say you’re dreadfully tired with all that wretched 
packing. — I’m so glad to see you again,” she added, 
turning with a charming little air of innocent pleasure 
to Wharton. “We were beginning to be quite nervous 
about you. I wanted to apply to one of these oflices, 
don’t you know, which are advertised in the daily pa- 
pers where they find missing friends for you and all 
that sort of thing. I hope you settled your business 
comfortably before you left Sussex ? We all felt so 
interested in it, though we hadn’t the ghost of a notion 
what it was.” 

“ You are too kind, Mrs. Lorimer,” said Wharton, 
bowing. 

The angel of deliverance carried a small sword ap- 
parently — still, sword or no sword, she was welcome. 

Frank had been too busy avoiding his wife’s train to 
take in any general impression of the situation on first 
entering the room. He saw that there was a stranger 
present 5 it seemed to him that both Elizabeth and 
Wharton were silent and constrained. Everybody 
looked rather odd and confused, he thought ; but it 


304 


MKS. LORIMER. 


really was no particular business of his. Frank con- 
tented himself with stroking his fair beard, and wonder- 
ing mildly whether anything could be the matter. 

Elizabeth introduced Edward Dadley to her sister- 
in-law, and Mrs. Frank embarked immediately in a 
lively conversation. Mr. Dudley’s powers in that line 
were never very great, and at this moment he was not 
a little disturbed, and was consequently even below his 
average in conversational ability. But Mrs. Frank was 
so serenely self-satisfied, owing to her Paris gown, that 
she would, I believe, have been capable of carrying on 
a deeply interesting conversation with a hydrocepha- 
lous idiot if necessary. 

Seeing that Dadley was safely provided for, Eliza- 
beth moved across the room to speak to Frank, who 
was engaged in welcoming Wharton back to civilized 
life again, and in making inquiries about Adolphus 
Carr and his charming house in Sussex. As Elizabeth 
came up, Wharton turned away. He could not quite 
recover his case of manner in her presence, after the 
very false position in which Edward Dadley’s unfortu- 
nate mistake had placed him. 

“ Mr. Wharton,” said Elizabeth, softly, without look- 
ing at him, “ will you do me a kindness ? — will you go 
and play ? It would be a relief, for I am too tired to 
talk.” 

There was something graceful in this appeal which 
touched Wharton. Tt meant, he thought, that she 
wished him to understand that she attached no blame 
to him for the distressing scene that had just taken 
place. 

‘‘Yes,” he answered, quickly turning to her. He 
was shocked by the pallor and sadness of her face. 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 305 


Wharton went away into the hack drawing-room 
and, settling himself at the piano, began playing rather 
tumultuously the first thing that came into his head. 

I am afraid I can’t talk, Frank,” said Elizabeth, 
sitting down wearily by him. ‘‘I suppose I’m over- 
tired. My head aches distractingly.” 

Frank looked down at her kindly. Her appearance 
pained him. He wished he could take care of her and 
do her some little service in a quiet, brotherly way. 

‘•'You’re simply tired out,” he said. “I don’t half 
like your going ofi' all alone to-morrow without any of us.” 

Elizabeth smiled faintly. 

“ I shall be better alone, I think,” she answered. 

There was a long silence between them. While 
Wharton went on playing — slipping from one thing into 
another with pleasant readiness and ease — and while 
Mrs. Frank discoursed to Dadley, who became more and 
more filled with the conviction that he was in the pres- 
ence of “ an awfully clever woman ”■ — Elizabeth sat star- 
ing straight in front of her, with her hands lying 
clasped in her lap. She felt dazed and stricken. The 
world had come to an end, after all — all she wanted now 
was to keep herself steady and calm till they had gone 
away, and she was left to herself. Wharton, playing 
on almost mechanically, wandered at last into the ac- 
companiment of the song of love, and death, and part- 
ing, which Elizabeth had said he must sing to her ear- 
lier in the evening. He remembered himself immedi- 
ately and changed the motive ; but the air had struck 
Elizabeth at once. She recalled the words only too 
clearly. She tried hard to master herself. With a sort 
of desperate gasp she put up one hand and pushed the 
soft brown hair back from her forehead. 


306 


MES. LORIMER. 


Frank noticed the movement. lie did not know 
what was the matter with her ; hut he grew a little 
frightened. He thought she was going to cry, and of 
all things he hated to see a woman crying. 

“We’d much better go and leave you quiet,” he 
said. “You are regularly knocked up ; and you’ll have 
to go off by the seven-o’clock express, I suppose, to- 
morrow.” 

“ If you go, please take them with you,” said Eliza- 
beth, with a motion of her hand toward Dadley and 
Wharton. 

Wharton was not so absorbed in his music but that 
he managed to see pretty clearly what was going for- 
ward in the other room. He saw Frank get up and go 
and speak to his wife, who turned to Elizabeth and 
talked to her with a good deal of vivacity for a minute 
or two — apparently she was offering a lot of good ad- 
vice regarding the next day’s journey. Then the two 
women kissed each otter with a pretty show of affec- 
tion. Edward Dadley shook hands with Elizabeth and 
said something — Wharton could not quite hear what, but 
he thought he recognized the word “awfully.” Evi- 
dently they were all going away. Wharton played on, 
he hardly knew why. 

When Frank had bidden Elizabeth good-by, he 
came over to the piano and laid his hand on Wharton’s 
shoulder. 

“We’re going, my dear fellow,” he said, “and you 
must come too. She is quite knocked up, and I want 
her to be quiet.” 

Wharton got up with a hopeless feeling upon him. 
It was a wretched ending to a wretched evening. Every 
thing had gone against him. He had had no chance. 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 307 

He went up to Elizabeth. 

“ I suppose I must go too, Mrs. Lorimer ? ” he said. 

Elizabeth held out her hand to him. There was a 
blank look on her face. She tried to smile, but the 
smile died away again, and she did not speak. 

Wharton went out of the room feeling just a little 
mad ; he ran down-stairs after Frank, and began put- 
ting on his coat with a considerable absence of his ac- 
customed composure ; he wanted to get out of the house 
and be quit of it all. 

“I knew Mrs. Lorimer years ago down at Clay- 
brooke,” Edward Dadley was saying to Mrs. Frank, 
while he helped her, with more gallantry than handi- 
ness, to wrap herself in her fur cloak. 

Ah, yes,” she answered. 

“ She isn’t a bit altered,” added Dadley. 

For some reason or other this observation infuriated 
Wharton. It made him feel wild. It seemed as if 
Elizabeth Lorimer was being claimed by this man. 

Martha had just opened the door, and two cabs were 
waiting outside in the dimly-lighted street. The night 
was cold and chilly, with a drizzling rain. 

Wharton came to a sudden desperate determination. 
He began taking off his overcoat again. 

‘‘ I’ve forgotten something I must say to Mrs. Lori- 
mer,” he said, turning to Frank. “ Don’t wait for me. 
I’ll follow you in five minutes.” 

“ Oh, my dear fellow, don’t go back now,” answered 
Frank Lorimer, quickly. ‘‘Do let her be quiet. She’s 
tired to death.” 

“I won’t be long,” Wharton said again. “I must 
just speak five words to her.” 

Frank would have protested further, but his wife, 


308 


MRS. LORIMER. 


who had watched this little scene with lively feelings 
of interest, called out to him rather impatiently : 

“ For pity’s sake, make haste, Frank ! You and Mr. 
TV^harton will have plenty of other opportunities for 
conversation. Pray don’t keep me meditating for ever 
on this wet doorstep ! ” 

Edward Dadley laughed his company laugh. He" 
fancied Mr. Frank Lorimer must get the worst of it 
sometimes. 

Very reluctantly Frank followed his wife, best gown 
and all, out to the cab. The front door banged, the 
two cabs rattled away in different directions, and then 
Wharton made his way up-stairs again. He had a feel- 
ing that his conduct was a little peculiar, that some 
people might, not unjustly, accuse him of a want of 
delicate feeling in going back thus after having bid his 
hostess good-by ; but Wharton had got to a point where 
he cared very little what anybody might say or think ; 
he only knew that there was an absolute necessity upon 
him to see Elizabeth Lorimer again. 

The door of the back drawing-room was standing 
half open on to the landing. Wharton waited a mo- 
ment to steady himself. He was about to take the most 
important step he had ever taken in his life, and his old 
habit of looking calmly at the situation reasserted itself. 

The house was very quiet. As he paused in the door- 
way he became aware of a low sound in the air — a sound 
not very ofter heard in luxurious rooms, amid warmth 
and beauty and the sweet scent of flowers, but a com- 
mon enough sound, alas ! for all that. Wharton asso- 
ciated it with dusky forms crouched down on doorsteps 
at night, half-seen by the passers-by in the dingy gas- 
light ; or sad, tattered figures, loitering aimlessly at 


A SKETCH m BLACK AM) WHITE. 309 


street corners in the bleak mist and fog of dull gray 
evenings. It was only the sound of a woman sobbing ; 
and that not loudly — sobbing quietly, as though hope 
was dead and her own heart nearly broken. 

Wharton waited a minute or two, hoping that the 
sobbing would cease, but it did not do so. The sound 
became terrible — a perfect nightmare — to him. He 
could bear it no longer. He felt he ought to go away, 
and yet the desire to see Elizabeth once more grew 
stronger and stronger. He pushed the door wide open 
and went into the room. 

Wharton had listened to the sound which arrested 
his attention as he paused in the doorway with consid- 
erable emotion ; but it had hardly prepared him for the 
scene within. 

Elizabeth had sunk down on to the floor, near the 
big arm-chair in which Wharton had sat so quietly, 
nursing his resentment against the obnoxious young 
squire earlier in the evening. She was in a half -kneeling, 
half-sitting position. She had thrown her bare arms 
out, with a passionate gesture, across the little black 
wooden table at her side. Her face was pressed down 
upon her two hands. The vase of narcissus-flowers was 
overturned, and the pure white blossoms were scattered 
on the carpet. 

Wharton’s first instinct was to retire. He could 
hardly bring himself to look at the usually quiet, stately 
Elizabeth as she lay there shaken with the storm of 
her grief. He had an idea that, except on the stage, 
a woman’s emotions should be as carefully veiled as her 
form. It seemed to him almost sacrilegious to permit 
himself to see her now, when she had thrown aside all 
conventional restraint, and was laying bare her inmost 


310 


MRS. LORIMER. 


heart in the wild abandon of her sorrow. Whartoii had 
always cultivated a general spirit of benevolence, but he 
had had very little experience in the active art of con~ 
solation. So bewildered w’as he by the situation in 
which he found himself that he hardly knew how to act. 
It seemed inhuman to go away and leave her thus. He 
could not do it. Yet if he staid he was in honor 
bound to let her know at once that he was in the room. 

Mrs. Lorimer,” he said, gently — Mrs. Lorimer.” 

The pains of birth are cruel, even more cruel perhaps 
than those of death. With bitter pangs and burning 
tears a new and nobler life was being born within Eliza- 
beth. .She had seen her old lover again, and his own 
words had, in a strangely vivid way, recalled the image 
of her husband. For a moment the two men had seemed 
to stand side by side. Elizabeth had compared them 
and judged them, and then turned away sick at heart. 
All her past had risen up before her. The but half- 
hearted courtship and marriage ; her own sense of be- 
wilderment amid the new conditions of her life ; the 
haunting thoughts of the boy -lover whom she had cared 
for with innocent, girlish fondness ; her husband’s illness 
and death ; her rebellion against God and against sor- 
row ; her angry disdain of simple duty ; her determina- 
tion to overlive her trouble ; her restless desire for 
amusement, and her not wholly successful attempt at 
friendship — all these things came to her remembrance 
and overwhelmed her. 

She lay, in a very agony of contrition, with her face 
pressed down upon her hands — in which she clutched 
the wooden rosary — when Wharton’s voice suddenly 
aroused her. 

Elizabeth struggled up on to her feet. As she did 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 311 


so, Wharton saw that her face was all marred and dis- 
figured with crying. The flowers she wore were crushed 
and broken. They had made a great, dull, red stain 
upon the bosom of her white dress. There was some- 
thing very hideous to Wharton in that stain. He could 
not take his eyes off it or forget it. 

With a violent effort, Elizabeth controlled her sobs 
and turned upon him haughtily. 

‘‘Why are you here?” she said. “Why have you 
come back in this way, without any warning ? ” 

Wharton admired the fine courage with which she 
tried to protect herself in her extremity. He felt at a 
dreadful disadvantage. 

“ Forgive me,” he answered. “ I could not help my- 
self. I was obliged to come back. I have something I 
must say to you, and this is my only chance, since you 
are going away to-morrow.” 

“ You must leave me,” said Elizabeth, harshly, with- 
out looking at him. “ I want to be alone.” 

But Wharton felt he had gone too far to turn back 
now. 

“ It is impossible for me to leave you in this condi- 
tion,” he said, quietly. “ As your friend, Mrs. Lorimer, 
I have a right to stay till you are calmer.” 

“ It will do no good,” Elizabeth answered, bitterly. 
“ You can not help me ; nobody can help me. I must 
bear my trouble alone. People don’t die of grief, they 
say — or of repentance either, for that matter,” she added. 

“ Still I shall stay,” said Wharton. 

A look of dead indifference settled down on Eliza- 
beth’s face. If he would stay, he must. After the first 
flash of womanly anger had died away, she did not 
really care very much whether he staid or not. She 


312 


MRS, LORIMER. 


was so absorbed in her own emotions that she was al- 
most unconscious of the presence of another person. 
There was no trace of the coquette about Elizabeth. 
She did not pose — she simply felt. 

She sat down in the arm-chair. Wharton stood wait- 
ing. For some time there was silence between them. 
At last he said : 

‘‘ Mrs. Lorimer, this is dreadful. You must tell me 
what has happened.” 

“ I can not tell you,” she answered, speaking slowly 
and with some difficulty. ‘‘ I can not tell any one.” 

Then she added, after a minute or two : ‘‘I have 
had a terrible experience to-night. Can you fancy 
what it is suddenly, in a moment, to be filled utterly 
with self-reproach ? To have built yourself a fair 
dwelling-house, and in the time of your utmost need to 
find that it is built on the sand ? To see it crack and 
crumble around you, to see it washed away for ever, 
while you stand homeless and desolate ? Oh ! Robert, 
Robert ! ” she cried, "breaking suddenly into a wild pas- 
sion of grief. “ Oh ! my darling, forgive me ! I have 
tried to forget you. I have wanted to fling all the past 
behind me. I have wanted so desperately to be happy. 
You, who have entered into that perfect peace where all 
our miserable selfish desires and jealousies fade away, 
forgive me, pardon me ! ” 

Elizabeth stood up. The flood-gates were open, and, 
utterly regardless of Wharton’s presence, she poured 
forth her heart in speech. 

‘‘ To-night,” she went on, “ I have learned the truth. 
Too late I have seen my fatal mistake. I have looked 
back at my past life ; I see that I have missed the 
meaning of it all, and that self, self, nothing but self, 


A SKETOn m BLACK AND WHITE. 


313 


is written across every page of it. I might have found 
fullness of joy in wedded love ; bitter-sweet joy in 
mourning ; calm and chastened joy in duty and obe- 
dience. I have rejected it all. Ah ! believe me,” she 
said, turning suddenly to him, God is merciful. He 
forgives. Soiled and weary, but repentant, we may 
still creep into heaven at last. But he is terribly just. 
What we sow, that, and that only, can we reap. I 
have sowed to myself, and I reap the fruit of my sow- 
ing — sorrow, emptiness, a fearful sense of waste. Yet 
I can not complain. It is bitter — no one else can ever 
know how bitter ; but it is all my own doing, and it is 
only just.” 

To Wharton there was something almost sublime 
in this submission. He thought of our Lady of Sorrow 
again ; and could have kneeled down and worshiped 
the woman who stood before him, crowned with the 
glory and the anguish of her utter self-abasement. 

After a little time she looked up again. All the 
hardness had melted out of her face, and there was 
something very wistful and tender in its expression. 

“If I had only lived two or three hundred years 
ago,” she said, “I should have gone away now and 
buried my mistakes and repentance in some convent. 

I should have put on coarse garments ; have brought 
my body into subjection with fasting and penance ; 
have hardened my hands with labor, and — ” 

“Don’t,” cried Wharton, suddenly, with a shudder. 

“ Pray don’t,” Mrs. Lorimer, “ I can’t stand this.” 

Elizabeth smiled faintly, but her Iq^s were tremu- 
lous. 

“ Why not ? ” she asked, gently. “ I think, do you 
know, I could be very peaceful and contented in some 
14 


314 


MES. LOEIMEE. 


quiet place, where high walls shut out the world, and 
where I might tend poor, old, sick folk and teach littl^ 
children. But this is a mere fanciful di’eam, touched 
with self-love again — I can’t do this.” 

“ N’o, thank God, you can’t ! ” he said, under his 
breath. 

‘‘I must do something, in a way, far harder than 
this,” she went on. “Something quite commonplace 
and comfortable. I must go back to Claybrooke to- 
morrow, and try to please and comfort those whom, in 
my selfish pride, I thrust aside and scorned. — I have 
made a great failure. — Now I shall be content with very 
simple duties. — I shall be humble in future, I think, and 
quite willing to take the lowest room. There are better 
things in life than happiness, perhaps. — But it is sad,” 
she added, looking away, and speaking more to her- 
self than to him, “ it is all very sad. It is all over for 
me j and the long years stretch out so gray and level 
into the distance ; and I shall be all alone — and I am 
so young.” ^ 

The last few words mdv^^Vharton strangely. She 
was very young ; and the m^tery and tragedy of it all 
seemed 4o him infinite. Ashe looked at her in her pite- 
ous beauty and sorro;^, ^harton read his own heart 
clear. — Friendship ,s€eiq^ to him a very pale and in- 
tangible good ; r his philosophies took to themselves 
wings and flew^arw^y ; all his doubts and indecisions 
resolved themselves! into one passionate desire. His 
face grew thin and pager, and a great light came into 
his eyes. He forgdt everything else. He only knew 
that, amid warmth/ and light, and the penetrating sweet- 
ness of flowers, he was standing alone, face to face, with 
the woman he loved. 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 315 


Wharton threw back his head, and took a long, deep 
breath. It seemed to him he had never really lived till 
now. 

Elizabeth was struck with the change in his appear- 
ance ; it almost frightened her. Instinctively she moved 
a step back. 

“ Elizabeth, listen to me,’^ he said, bending toward 
her ; listen — I love you. I know that I love you. 
Look, dearest, I know I am not worth very much. I 
have been a light-minded, frivolous creature enough all 
my days. But I will love and honor you ; I will serve 
you early and late ; your lightest wish shall be my law. 
I will be your very slave. I believe I could make you 
very happy, Elizabeth — only love me, darling,” he said, 
“ love me.” 

The young man’s eager face, the words of passion- 
ate tenderness and worship, were very wonderful coming 
to Elizabeth at this moment. She had sunk very low in 
her own estimation, all her pride was humbled in the 
dust — and now suddenly, unexpectedly, came this offer 
of love and protection. 

“ Ah ! ” she said, “ how can I love you ? I dare not 
love you after all the past.” 

‘‘We will forget all the past,” he answered. “We 
will both begin life anew from to-night. The future is 
ours — only love me, Elizabeth.” 

Do not despise poor Elizabeth if she hesitated. She 
had taken but a few steps along the rugged way of 
penitence and self-denial that leads up — as we trust — 
at last, to the perfected glory and peace of heaven. 
Saints and martyrs have paused and turned pale at 
sight of that hard, stony road winding up the bare hill- 
side. What wonder if this delicate, weak, and erring 


316 


MRS. LOEIMER. 


woman sRould cast longing backward glances at the 
green pastures and still waters in the valley below? 
Wbat wonder if gentle companionship, if love, and 
beauty, and common human joys, should tempt her?— 
if more tender hopes even than these — hopes which like 
every true woman she had cherished, and which it had 
been her lot to see wither and die — should move her 
to give way ? Tiny baby-hands seemed for a moment 
to press about her bosom, and sweet baby-lips to meet 
her own in clinging kisses. 

With eyes dim with strange, half-happy tears, with 
a smile dawning again on her pale and weary face, she 
stood looking at her waiting lover. 

Wharton thought he read her answer. 

“Elizabeth ! ” he said, in a tone of triumphant joy, 
and stretched out both his hands with an impetuous 
gesture to take hers. 

As he did so, the wooden rosary slipped from her 
yielding fingers and fell with a hard, dry rattle on to 
the floor. 

Wharton and Elizabeth started apart. 

In moments of vivid excitement and deep emotion 
a very small incident may change the course of feeling, 
and consequently of events. That time-honored sym- 
bol of prayer, and penitence, and humility, with its 
roughly-carved image of the dying Saviour of mankind, 
seemed suddenly to interpose an invisible but impene- 
trable barrier between the two lovers. 

Elizabeth was the first to speak. Her voice sounded 
thin and far off, as though it came from a great dis- 
tance. 

“I can not marry you,” she said ; “I belong to my 
dead husband.” 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 317 

A living love is better tban a dead love ! ” cried 
Wharton, fiercely. 

“ The greatest love must die to gain that which it 
loves,” she answered, pointing to the crucifix lying 
among the scattered flowers. 

‘‘ Elizabeth,” said Wharton, desperately, “ you dare 
not be so cruel. Through my love for you I have 
found a new life. Have you given me a soul merely to 
damn it ? ” 

Elizabeth covered her face with her hands. The 
temptation to yield to his pleading was almost irresisti- 
ble. It is so difficult in the face of that which is seen 
to cling to that which, though unseen, is yet eternal. 
But Elizabeth had, at last, perceived that through the 
wilderness of this life there stretches a more excellent 
way ; ” and she dared not wander from it in search of 
mere temporal happiness. 

When she spoke again she was quite still and calm. 

‘‘You must go,” she said. “ God is good ; he will 
guide us both. I can not marry you.” 

The last appeal of the civilized man, like the first 
appeal of the savage, is, after all, to the senses. As a 
drowning man clutches at straws, so Wharton clutched 
at his last chance. He came close to Elizabeth, and 
looked her full in the face. 

“I will go,” he said ; “but first you must kiss me — 
only once, Elizabeth.” 

She flushed all rosy red ; but she met his eyes stead- 

i>y- 

“ You must go,” she answered, “ and I will not kiss 
you, even once.” 

Wharton turned away sick at heart. 

His old, easy-going, pleasant life seemed shattered 


318 


MES. LOEIMER. 


and broken, and at this moment Ife had little enough 
hope that a better life would rise from its ruins. The 
passion, which had so suddenly developed within him, 
left him bitter and unsatisfied. He was going through 
those dark and troubled waters which all the nobler 
natures among us must struggle through, at least once, 
if we are to learn anything real concerning our own 
hearts and the world around us. He knew that it was 
hopeless to try any more to move Elizabeth. He was 
weary of the battle and the anguish. 

“Good-by, Mrs. Lorimef,” he said. “You have 
given me the greatest joys and the greatest sorrows of 
my life.” 

Elizabeth could not trust herself to answer. She 
merely gave him her hand. He took it and, bending 
down, kissed it lightly. Then he went slowly away. 

Wharton looked back once. Elizabeth stood, a tall^,- 
glimmering, white figure among the fading narcissus- 
flowers, with sad, wide-open, gray eyes, and a dull red 
stain upon her breast. 

A few minutes later she had taken the little sketch 
of Robert Lorimer from its narrow resting-place in the 
writing-table drawer. : Perhaps there is no purer joy in 
life, after all, than th^ joy of restitution. 


CHAPTER XI. 


“ The true order of approaching to the things of love is to use the 
beauties of earth as steps along which to mount upward to that other 
beautj, rising from the love of one to the love of two, and from the love 
of two to the love of all fair forms, and from the love of fair forms to fair 
deeds, and from fair deeds to fair thoughts, till from fair thoughts he 
reaches on to the thought of the Uncreated loveliness, and at last knows 
what true beauty is.” 

The next morning Elizabeth and Martha — ^the latter 
not a little bewildered by her mistress’s sudden change 
of plans — traveled down to Slowby. It was a bright 
mild spring-day. The wind blew softly across the 
broad pastures, and the elm-buds blushed red in the 
sunshine. Here and there, the blossom of the black- 
thorn still lay like a thin snow-wreath upon the hedges. 
The larch-trees had put on their dainty garment of 
green. In the spinnies the ground was starred with 
white anemone-flowers, and the flrst primroses tempted 
the village children to wander far afield, between morn- 
ing and afternoon school ; while the cloud-shadows flit- 
ted lightly across the face of the country, and the lines 
of the distant woods looked infinitely far and still in the 
clear atmosphere. 

Elizabeth had telegraphed to Mr. Mainwaring early 
in the morning. She knew that telegrams were regarded 
with small favor at the Rectory, as one of the many 
superfluous and agitating developments of modern civ- 


320 


MRS. LORIMER. 


ilization. Respectable and well-regulated persons should 
always know their plans beforehand ; and only in cases 
of the direst necessity should they have recourse to this 
urgent, and rather undignified, method of communicat- 
ing with their families. Mrs. Mainwaring held that it 
is always vulgar to appear in a hurry. But Elizabeth 
could not stop just now to consider the possible effects 
of her telegram upon her aunt’s mind. She wanted 
desperately to get away from London at once. She 
dared not run the risk of meeting Wharton again, and 
she dreaded the thought of a catechism from Fanny 
Lorimer concerning her sudden change of plans. 

She had grasped the idea of penance with all the 
energy of her ardent nature, and while the emotion was 
still strong within her she felt a feverish desire to break 
utterly with her past life, and to make her peace with 
her aunt and uncle. She was possessed with the pas- 
sionate longing for entire self-surrender that has made 
torture and death an actual joy to thousands. She was 
in love with a new and exquisite ideal which had pre- 
sented itself to her ; and she could neither pause nor 
rest till she had made the offering of herself complete. 
This is a somewhat perilous state of feeling. It can 
meet the rack or the stake with a splendid courage ; 
but it has a tendency to grow rather thin, and tired, 
and acid, when the crown of glory is not quickly 
awarded, and when it is tested by the steady strain of 
every day. 

Claybrooke Rectory has always struck me as a very 
composed place. It does not look as if its inhabitants 
would ever be the victims of overmuch spiritual exalta- 
tion. There is a suggestion of kindly and secure well- 
being about its warm, sober-coloring, solid masonry^ 


A SKETCH m BLACK AND WHITE. 321 


quaint gables and windows, and about its well-kept 
lawns and gardens, wbicb is certainly soothing and re- 
assuring. Some places incline one instinctively to take 
comfortable views of this world and the next ; and dis- 
pose one to wonder whether, after all, there is not a 
great deal to be said on the side of the Universalists. 

Rufus, the old brown retriever, roused himself from 
a nap on the broad doorstep as Elizabeth got out of the 
carriage. He wagged his tail slowly, and smiled a lazy 
welcome to his former playmate ; but he did not feel it 
necessary to express any more active joy at her return. 
Rufus had reached the time of life — common to dogs 
and men alike — when warmth is the greatest good, and 
cold the greatest evil, of existence ; when no event is 
very surprising, and the mind is willing to acquiesce in 
any state of things'short of actual physical distress. 

The softly radiant spring day, the stately calm of 
the house, and the old dog sleeping his easy life away 
on the sunny doorstep, formed a strange and pathetic 
contrast to the rapid movements, and worn, eager face 
of the beautiful young woman who passed hastily in- 
doors. 

The Rector was out, and Mrs. Mainwaring was up- 
stairs. They had not expected Mrs. Lorimer till the 
afternoon train — so said Bunton when he met Elizabeth 
in the hall. He was slightly put about, being unaccus- 
tomed to sudden arrivals, a id to that reversal of pre- 
conceived ideas which they produce. 

Elizabeth went swiftly up-stairs, along the dark, 
wainscoted landing, and opened the sitting-room door. 

The scene within was very calm and sweetly cheer- 
ful. The room, with its white paneled walls and light 
curtains, seemed full of sunshine. One of the windows 


322 


MRS. LORIMER. 


stood open, and a soft breeze — bearing delicate scents 
of the fresh-turned earth, of the springing grass and 
opening leaves— came in at it, and gently stirred the 
lappets of Mrs. Mainwaring’s white lace cap, as she sat 
quietly knitting by the fire. 

There was something in this peaceful little picture 
which affected Elizabeth strongly. The imperative, 
almost hard, expression died out of her face, and gave 
place to a wistful tenderness. 

Mrs. Mainwaring looked up as the door opened. 
Her forehead contracted slightly, and a pink flush came 
into her cheeks. 

Elizabeth did not give her time either to rise or 
speak, but walked quickly across the room and knelt 
down on the hearth-rug before her. 

“Aunt Susan,” she said, and her voice took the 
tones of entreaty, while her eyes filled with tears, “ I 
have been greatly to blame. I left you two years ago 
in the foolish pride of my heart ; but I have been pun- 
ished. Since then I have learned a hard lesson. I have 
come back to ask your forgiveness. I will be gentle 
and patient, I will try my utmost to please you — I will 
be like your own daughter — if you will only forgive me 
and let me come home.” 

Elizabeth’s little speech ended in a sob. 

All the hungry, unsatisfied mother - love in Mrs, 
Mainwaring awoke and yearned toward the fair woman 
before her. She staid neither to ask questions nor read 
a moral. She merely put out both her hands and drew 
the sweet, weary head down to rest upon her bosom. 

“ My poor child,” she said, softly, “ you are very 
welcome home. Perhaps we both have made mistakes 
in the past, but we will forget them. It must only be a 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 323 

question of love, not of forgiveness, between you and 
me.” 

“ Ah ! ” said Elizabeth, with a restful sigh — like that 
of a little child, which, having lost its way and wandered 
far and wide, finds itself safe, at last, in its mother’s arms 
again — “ ah ! you do forgive me, dear Aunt Susie ? I 
know I did wrong ; but I am sorry, and I am so very, 
very tired.” 

Mrs. Main waring stooped and kissed her forehead. 

“Well then, darling, rest,” she said. 


It must be owned that the middles of things are 
always rather trying. Beginnings are full of hope and 
promise. We have been disappointed many times be- 
fore, certainly ; but, a fig for past disappointments ! — 
this time all will surely go straight. Endings, though 
too often touched with dissatisfaction and regret, still 
have a promise of coming repose or change about them, 
which is generally more or less grateful. The morning 
and the evening are romantic, and one can think of a 
hundred-and-one pretty things to say concerning them ; 
but it argues a very strenuous and active state of mind 
— or a certain quality of wholesome dullness in one’s 
composition — if one can honestly sing the praises of the 
middle-day. 

The morning of poor Elizabeth’s repentance was 
strong and fresh. Nothing seemed too hard for her to 
dare, too difficult for her to undertake. But in healthy 
natures spiritual development is almost always gradual. 
There may be a moment of sudden awakening, when 
the head and heart alike are convinced of error ; and 
the recognition of that error may produce a lasting 


324 


MRS. LORIMER. 


effect on the character. But resignation and self-re- 
nunciation can not he perfected in a moment. The per- 
fecting of them is a long and arduous process, during 
which the poor soul, driven forth from its old dwelling- 
place and fainting in the arid wilderness, loses faith and 
courage at times, and cries out with hungry longing 
after the flesh-pots of its forsaken Egypt. 

For a while the passionate feeling, horn of love 
to her dead husband and hitter sorrow for her past 
willfulness, supported Elizabeth. The breaking wave 
carried her far up to the shore. But later, when the 
first intensity of her feeling had subsided, when mere 
emotion was required to crystallize into steady habit, 
there came a season of trial and danger— a time of 
what old devotional writers call “spiritual dryness” — in 
which she was tempted to think her faults of little im- 
portance, and her repentance exaggerated ; and when 
the fair and stately ideal of the religious life grew pale 
and misty to her tired eyes. 

She struggled bravely, for she had a noble spirit. 
She never quite lost her hold of the deep truths which 
she had grasped ; but at times she was sad and restless, 
and the way seemed very long, and the burden very 
heavy. Victory is, too often, a melancholy business, 
after all. The battle may gallantly be fought and 
fairly won ; yet afterward there must be days of an- 
guish for the wounded, and of mourning for the dead, 
and of heavy sorrow at sight of the trampled fields and 
ruined homesteads. 

The promise is to those that “ endure.” And not- 
withstanding depression and self - distrust, Elizabeth 
Lorimcr did endure ; and in time she was rewarded. 
She began, at last, to know the inward peace which 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AKD WHITE. 335 

springs from the absence of personal desire, and the 
serenity which grows out of true self-renunciation. In 
proportion as she ceased to love her own narrow life, 
she began to find a richer and wider life in sympathy 
with those around her. Acts of charity and of self- 
denial, which before had appeared to her only as tire- 
some obligations to her fellow-creatures, now became in 
a way sacramental — symbols of faithful obedience to 
God and loving brotherhood with man. Elizabeth was 
learning, slowly and painfully, to exchange the love of 
her own fancies for the love of certain Eternal Verities 
— doubted, scorned, pushed angrily aside by generation 
after generation ; yet always abiding, patiently reas- 
serting themselves, ever ready to be revealed in infinite 
sweetness and consolation to the broken and contrite 
heart. 

It may seem slightly eccentric to. describe the moral 
and spiritual experiences of a modern young lady, who 
ministers to one’s material wants at five-o’clock tea, 
and does not disdain to make herself agreeable in ordi- 
nary society, in terms which are usually reserved for 
the delineation of a mediaeval saint. But, though the 
outward conditions and circumstances change, the vital 
processes of the human mind are very much alike in the 
first century and in the nineteenth. Given a certain type 
of character, its mental history will be nearly the same 
in every age. 

It is certain, any way, that those who, like myself, 
had the privilege of seeing something of Mrs. Lorimer 
during the months that followed her return to Clay- 
brooke, perceived a very distinct change in her. 

Personally, I must own to having been a good deal 
occupied about Mrs. Lorimer at this period ; though I 


326 


MRS. LORIMER. 


am afraid she was utterly indifferent to my sentimental 
condition — if, indeed, she was even aware of its exist- 
ence. She had lost some of her queenliness, some of 
the rich bloom of her early beauty •; but, to me at least, 
she had never appeared more captivating. There was 
something in her face which reminded one of the still 
purity of the open sky, when the heavy storm-clouds 
are all rolled away and the evening light spreads itself, 
with a tender radiance, over the resting land. There 
were a sweet reasonableness and a certain gracious 
humility about her. She was gentle and friendly, scorn- 
ing no little deeds of kindly service to those around her. 

The people of Claybrooke, who heretofore had re- 
garded her merely as Mr. Mainwaring’s heiress — as a 
young lady whose position and personal charms created 
a rather dramatic atmosphere about her, the observa- 
tion of which might afford some innocent excitement 
to humbler individuals — now began to reckon upon her 
sure help and quick sympathy in all their troubles. In- 
stinctively men of her own class treated her with the 
delicate courtesy and reverence which it should be the 
right of every woman to receive at the hands of every 
man ; but which it is really a little difficult to accord to 
the alarmingly vigorous, lawn-tennis-playing damsels of 
the present day. 

I do not doubt but that Mrs. Lorimer had sad hours, 
lonely hours, hours of disappointment and regret ; that 
she was annoyed and disheartened and distressed some- 
times, like the rest of us. In comparing her to the 
saints, I am very far from wishing to imply that she 
was faultless ; indeed, I am disposed to think that, 
if the saints themselves had not made a good many 
mistakes, at times, while they were here on earth, there 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 327 


would be little enough temptation to ask tlieir prayers 
now that they are safe in heaven. I would only say 
that I believe Elizabeth — like her noble Thuringian 
namesake — having once perceived the deepest meaning 
of this life, and having seen that ‘‘more excellent way,” 
walked along it steadfastly, with a fine and simple cour- 
age, while the light about her shone clearer and clearer 
toward the perfect day. 

If such things do not and can not happen, if lives 
can not be so lived, then indeed we are most miserable ; 
for the fairest ideal of human attainment that has ever 
been vouchsafed to poor struggling men and women is, 
after all, but a delusion and a lie. 


CHAPTER XII. 


“ Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, 

Nor the furious winter’s rages ; 

Thou thy worldly task hast done, 

Home art gone and ta’en thy wages : 

Golden lads and girls all must. 

As ehimney-sweepers, come to dust.” 

That summer was very wet — ^it rained in June, and 
in July, and right on into September. At Claybrooke 
the stream, from which the parish takes its name, over- 
flowed, and the low-lying lands in the valley were more 
or less under water for months. There was a good deal 
of illness and fever about. The potatoes rotted in the 
ground, and the wheat grew in the shocks before it 
could be gathered in. In our heavy clay country a wet 
summer is a very nasty business. 

Meanwhile, Mrs. Frank Lorimer, notwithstanding 
Elizabeth’s defection, held stoutly to the plan of spend- 
ing the summer in Switzerland. Frank protested on 
the score of expense and of the difliculty of taking two 
small children such a long journey ; but, his wife hav- 
ing made up her mind, he, as usual, ended by giving 
way. So, by the middle of August, the Frank Lorimers 
found themselves established in one of those charming 
little towns that fringe the northern shores of the Lake 
of Geneva, with their rows of white houses. 


A SKETCH IlSr BLACK AND WHITE. 329 


Wharton had joined the party — ^he would really 
have been at a loss to state exactly why. His feelings 
toward Mrs. Frank were certainly not of an ardently 
affectionate nature ; but he liked her husband. Too he 
felt, deep down in his heart, a sort of morose satisfac- 
tion in being with Elizabeth Lorimer’s relations, and in 
picking up stray bits of information about her from 
time to time. 

A change had come over Wharton in the last few 
months. He was more silent and preoccupied, less 
cheery and expansive, and he looked a good deal older. 
He had been drawing hard lately ; and intelligent crit- 
ics thought they perceived a new quality in his work. 
It was less delicately pretty, but stronger, and with 
more meaning and directness of intention about it. 
One or two people were good enough to prophesy con- 
cerning him that he would still make his mark. When 
some acquaintance asked him, one day, how he had 
come suddenly to make such a distinct advance and im- 
provement, he shrugged his shoulders and answered, 
with a laugh : 

“ Oh, you know, this child too has been in hell ! ” 

The Frank Lorimers were very prosperous people. 
Things as a rule went easily and pleasantly with them ; 
but just at this period they seemed to get a run of bad 
luck. 

The weather was almost as wet in “ the beautiful 
Pays de Vaud” as at home in England. A daily thun- 
der-storm came to be reckoned as regularly included in 
the bill of fare. The children were poorly and fretful ; 
and, as a very crown of trouble, Frank managed, while 
doing a little rudimentary mountaineering, to slip on 
some loose rock and sprain his ankle. It caused him 


330 


MRS. LORIMER. 


acute pain at tRe time, and obliged him to spend the 
best part of a month on the sofa, swearing mildly at 
foreign countries in general and at mountainous coun- 
tries in particular ; and declaring that he, for his part, 
should spend his next holiday at Margate, dine at one 
o’clock, and have shrimps every evening for tea, let 
Fanny say what she liked. 

On a certain Monday afternoon, while the daily 
thunder-storm was cannonading backward and forward 
among the hills, the Lorimers were trying to amuse 
themselves, as well as they could, in their little salon. 
It was a not very luxurious apartment — possessed of 
solid furniture and a superfluity of faded, red, Utrecht 
velvet — on the second floor of the hotel ; but it had the 
charm of possessing, also, two great French windows 
opening on to a balcony, which commanded a splendid 
view — when anything was to be seen. 

Frank was lying on the sofa, grumbling gently. To 
come abroad at considerable expense, and then be laid 
up in this way, was enough to turn even his amiable 
nature a little sour. Mrs. Frank was struggling to take 
a vital interest in a Tauchnitz novel — concerning which 
she had a horrid suspicion that the third volume was 
lost — and, alternately, listening to hear if the baby 
“ sounded happy ” with his nurse in the next room, and 
admonishing 'Nini, who, bored and irritable at being 
kept so much indoors, seemed to be meditating unspeak- 
able atrocities upon the now-no-longer-new “ dollie with 
the pink hat.” Fred Wharton stood lazily at the open 
window, with his hands in his pockets and his back to 
the company, watching the progress of the storm. He 
had developed rather a habit of standing moodily doing 
nothing but stare out of the window just lately. 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 331 


The prospect was not a cheering one. Across the 
lake, the mountains of Savoy and of the Valais were 
sulking behind heavy streaming masses of white mist. 
Down toward Geneva there was a lurid light in the 
sky, and the swiftly-moving copper-coloTed clouds were 
twisted and contorted into a thousand weird, fantastic 
shapes. The broad lake, itself, was a murky blue, with 
long, zigzagged flaws of livid gray, where the sudden 
gusts of wind swept across the angry surface of the 
water. In the foreground, Wharton could see the 
waves dashing themselves fitfully against the stone wall 
on the other side of the roadway ; while great drops of 
rain splashed and pattered on the broad leaves of the 
pollarded plane-trees in the garden just below. It was 
not an encouraging outlook, certainly ; but perhaps 
Wharton was none the less in sympathy with it on 
that account. 

There was a knock at the door of the salon. * 

‘‘ Entrez ! ” cried Mrs. Frank over her shoulder. 

Then, turning to the little girl on the floor by her 
side, she said : 

“ IN’ini, my dear child, do have some sort of compas- 
sion on that unfortunate doll. You’ll break its head 
right off, you know, if you bang it down on the floor 
in that way.” 

Nini looked up, with a very mutinous little face, at 
her mother, and banged the doll’s head down again on 
the bare parquet floor. 

“ I hate this dollie,” she said, petulantly, “ she’s so 
old. I want to go out into the garden and play.” 

Wharton turned round as the door opened. It was 
only a hurried and slightly distracted gargon with a 
packet of English letters. 


332 


MRS. LORIMER. 


‘‘ Mone for you, Fred,” said Frank Lorimer, as lie 
examined them slowly, before proceeding to open them. 

Wharton turned back to the window again. 

“ Good gracious ! ” cried Frank, all of a sudden. 

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked his wife. Al- 
most any event would have been a relief to her this 
afternoon, she felt so unutterably bored. 

“ Elizabeth’s ill, down at Claybrooke,” said Frank, 
slowly, running his eyes over the pages of the letter. 
“ Old Mr. Mainwaring writes. They want me to go 
there at once.” 

Wharton set his teeth rather hard, as he watched the 
flaws of wind chasing each other across the sullen face 
of the lake. He remembered Elizabeth Lorimer as he 
had seen her last, standing pale and -patient, in her 
white dress among the scattered flowers. He had told 
her once that presentiments were silly things ; but he 
thought, with a sickening feeling of dread, of the dull- 
red stain upon her bosom. 

“ Fanny, come here ! ” cried Frank, sharply. “ Look 
here, this letter’s a good week old. It was sent to Lon- 
don, and evidently it wasn’t forwarded for several days.” 

Fanny Lorimer moved quickly across the room, and 
kneeling down by her husband’s side began reading the 
letter. 

“ Anything may have happened by this time,” Frank 
said. “ What on earth am I to do ? ” 

“ Oh ! I’m afraid she is really very ill. I am afraid 
it is serious,” said Fanny Lorimer, in accents of genu- 
ine alarm and distress. “ I tell you what, Frank,” she 
went on, getting up and standing by him with a pretty 
air of determination, “ I must go off to her at once, 
this very evening.” 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 333 

Indeed, you’ll do nothing of the kind,” he answered ' 
shortly. 

Like a good many other people, Frank had a habit 
of getting remarkably cross when he was frightened. 

“ It’s quite bad enough to have Elizabeth catching 
a nasty fever, going and poking about in beastly cot- 
tages, without your rushing off to look after her and 
catching it too. And I’ve not the least intention of be- 
ing left here, tied by the leg, with a grumbling nurse 
and a couple of naughty children on my hands, I can 
tell you.” 

“ I’m sure the children are not particularly naughty,” 
answered Fanny Lorimer, who in the very article of 
death would have bristled up to defend the reputation 
of the two babies. 

“ I don’t know what on earth to do, though,” said 
Frank, despairingly. 

Fred Wharton had turned round and was standing 
with his back to the window. He had formed a defi- 
nite plan in his own mind, but he wanted to propose it 
quietly ; and make it appear the most natural and ob- 
vious course in the world, both to himself and to his 
companions. 

He sauntered slowly up to the sofa. 

‘‘One thing is certain, anyway, Frank,” he said, 
quietly, “you can’t travel.” 

“ I know,” answered the other man, dismally. “ I 
hope I’m not a great coward, you know, but I really 
don’t think I could.” 

“And Mrs. Lorimer can’t be spared,” added Whar- 
ton ; “that’s clear.” 

Fanny Lorimer glanced up at him quickly. She 
held her own opinion as to what had made Elizabeth 


334 


MRS. LORIMER. 


suddenly retire to Claybrooke, and Wharton become so 
silent and moody. Even at this moment of real trouble 
on her part — for she was very fond of Elizabeth — she 
could not resist trying to gain some hints regarding 
past events from his manner and expression. 

Wharton looked at her steadily ; there was some- 
thing rather hard and unpleasant in his face, which 
made Fanny Lorimer drop her eyes quickly on to the 
open letter again. 

If you write,” he continued ; “ it will be at least 
five or six days before you can get any answer. If you 
telegraph, you can’t explain all your reasons for not 
coming, and they may not unreasonably think you 
rather indifferent and unsympathetic.” He paused a 
minute. ‘‘I really think you’d better let me go,” he 
added. ‘‘I can catch the evening train through to 
Paris. You know I could go right on down to Clay- 
brooke and telegraph you the real state of the case.” 

‘‘You really are the best fellow in the world, Fred,” 
said Frank Lorimer, his face clearing up considerably. 
“ I shall be everlastingly grateful to you.” 

Whatever Fanny Lorimer’s feelings may have been, 
she hid them under a charming smile of relief and grati- 
tude, and made no objection. 

All that night, and through the next day, as he 
traveled north — in noisy trains, on the steamboat, and 
at crowded stations — Fred Wharton was haunted with 
a vision of Elizabeth Lorimer, in her white gown, with 
the rough rosary in her hands, and the red stain upon 
her bosom. He had a lurking terror of what he might 
hear at the end of his journey ; and, at the same time, 
a wild hope that somehow he should see her and plead 
with her, and that, this time, sho would yield to his 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 335 


pleading. He knew, only too well, that he loved her 
desperately, and he hoped on still against hope. 

Tired, haggard, and dirty, he arrived at quiet little 
Slowby early on the second day after leaving Switzer- 
land. Hiring a cah, he drove straight over to Clay- 
hrooke by the broad, high-lying, main road. The rain 
was falling in a steady down-pour, and all the distant 
country was blotted out with impenetrable mist. When 
at length he got to Claybrooke, Wharton left his cab 
in the village street and walked alone up to the house. 

He could almost have cried out loud in the intensity 
of his suspense, as he stood, waiting on the doorstep. 
When the butler opened the door Wharton glanced at 
him sharply. There was something odd, he fancied, 
about the man’s bearing and manner. 

Tell me,” he said, hoarsely, “ how is Mrs. Lorimer ? ” 

B unton stared at him for a moment ; he seemed 
hardly to know how to answer. 

“ Don’t you know, sir ? ” he asked, slowly. ‘‘ Haven’t 
you heard ? ” 

“ No, no,” cried Wharton, impatiently. Why, if I 
had heard, I shouldn’t come here now to ask.” 

Bunton waited a minute or two before speaking. 
He looked back into the great somber hall behind him, 
and out across the carriage-sweep, as though he hoped 
that from somewhere somebody would come and help 
him. 

At last he said simply : 

‘‘ The funeral was yesterday at noon, sir.” 

Wharton threw up his two hands and staggered 
back against the doorpost. 

“ Good God ! ” he said, under his breath, she is 
dead ! ” 


336 


MRS. LORIMER. 


It was all over. He would never plead with her 
and she would never yield to his entreaties. The great 
black curtain had been drawn between them for ever, 
and he would never see her lovely face in this world again. 

Far away inside the house a door banged. Then 
Wharton heard footsteps in the garden, and a tall man, 
with straight, clear-cut features and deep-set, keen gray 
eyes, in a long white mackintosh, gaiters, and shooting- 
boots, came slowly round the corner of the rambling 
old house. Wharton knew directly that it must be Mr. 
Mainwaring, from the subtle likeness he bore to Eliza- 
beth. 

But Mr. Mainwaring had aged very much since the 
afternoon that he rode home, in the chill and dusk, 
from his long day’s hunting, seven months before. 
There were deep lines about his mouth, as though he 
had suffered some heavy sorrow which had eaten into 
his very heart. He walked with his head a little for- 
ward and his shoulders somewhat bent. Leaping about 
him were the two fox-terriers Billy and Boxer. Evi- 
dently they had only just been let out, and were in a 
state of frantic joy. 

“ Get down, dogs, get down ! ” said Mr. Mainwar- 
ing, testily “ Can’t you be quiet for once in your lives, 
you sensei brutes ? ” 

Looking up^ he caught sight of Wharton in the 
doorway. 

“ Who’s, ^ f ” he said, sharply. “ What’s the 

matter ? Is tjbe man ill ? ” 

At any other time Wharton would probably have 
resented this somewhat uncourteous address pretty 
strongly ; but now he was too broken down to care to 
stand upon his dignity. 


A SKETCH IK BLACK AND WHITE. 337 


“ I have just heard some news from your servant 
here,” he said, “ which has shocked me inexpressibly.” 

Mr. Mainwaring paused and looked at him. Whar- 
ton’s personal appearance was, naturally, not improved 
by his long and hurried journey ; but Mr. Mainwaring 
saw that, whatever his business might be, he was un- 
doubtedly a gentleman. 

I come from Frank Lorimer,” said Wharton. 

- ‘‘ He ought to have come himself, long ago,” an- 
swered Mr. Mainwaring, harshly. 

‘‘They are abroad,” said Wharton. “Your letter 
only reached them the day before yesterday. Lorimer 
has had an accident ; he is laid up, and it was impossi- 
ble for him to travel. I knew Mrs. Lorimer very well,” 
he added, looking Mr. Mainwaring full in the face. “ I 
offered to come here and telegraph the latest news to 
them, but — ” 

Wharton’s voice grew husky ; he could not manage 
to say any more. 

Mr. Mainwaring turned away, and gazed down the 
carriage-drive, through the dull rain and mist. 

“ You are too late, sir,” he said. 

“ I know it,” Wharton answered, quietly enough ; 
but he felt that Mr. Mainwaring’s words cu^ right into 
his very heart. 

All along he knew he had been just +hat — “too 
late.” It made him nearly mad to tl was possi- 

ble — nay, even probable — that everythhig would have 
ended so differently, but for his own selfish and cow- 
ardly indecision ; if he had spoken, as he had been 
greatly tempted to, when he met Elizabeth in the windy 
twilight, that evening on the Embankment. His mis- 
fortune, he feared, was pretty much of his own making. 

15 


338 


MRS. LORIMER. 


He had no one to blame for it, after all, except himself ; 
and that reflection added just the bitterest drop to the 
cup of his sorrow. A sort of blind rage took possession 
of him at the thought of all he had lost. He turned 
suddenly and flercely upon Mr. Mainwaring, regardless 
of the strangeness of their relative position. 

“ But how did it happen ? ” he demanded. “ Why 
was she ill ? What — what have you all been doing ? ” 

The two men were still standing on the broad door- 
step. Mr. Mainwaring had, so far, made no proposal 
to Wharton to come indoors. Mr. Mainwaring was not 
in the habit of analyzing his own sensations very 
acutely; but he was sensible that there was a certain 
dreary harmony between his present state of mind and 
the dull, soaking day. And then, too, he felt unwilling 
to take this stranger into the house, still hushed and, in 
a way, sanctified by the recent presence of death. Mr. 
Mainwaring found this interview anything but pleasant. 
He desired to cut it as short as possible, and he thought 
it would be easier to do so standing out there in the 
wnt. When Wharton’s urgent, reproachful questions 
sounded in his ears, he turned to the young man swiftly 
and proudly. It seemed to him almost insolent, and he 
felt disposed to make a harsh rejoinder and cut the in- 
terview very short indeed ; but there was something in 
the expression of Wharton’s face that arrested his at- 
tention. 

Mr. Mainwaring looked at him keenly for a minute 
or two, while his grisled eyebrows contracted, and a 
straight line cut itself, deep and sharp, into his fore- 
head. At last he answered, quite calmly ; 

“ You tell me you knew my niece well,” he said ; 
very well, then, you must know that she was not easy 


A SKETCH m BLACK AKD WHITE. 339 

to turn from any purpose she took in hand. She was a 
noble woman ; she was stubborn and determined in car- 
rying through that which she believed to be right.” 

Wharton bowed. He felt that he had spoken in- 
temperately, and that his companion’s courtesy exceeded 
his deserts. 

‘‘ My niece,” Mr. Main waring went on slowly and 
doggedly, as though compelling himself to speak — 
“ was not one of those dainty persons who are content 
to let their religion walk in silver slippers ; who plume 
themselves on being very much distressed by suffering, 
while they do nothing practical to lessen it. My niece 
Elizabeth’s virtues were not of the sentimental and hys- 
terical order.” 

Mr. Mainwaring paused a moment, looked away, 
and then spoke again, with the same quiet determina- 
tion. 

“We’ve had a very bad season,” he said. “There 
has been fever here, off and on, all the summer, from 
the floods and the wet. My wife and I wanted her — 
wanted Elizabeth — to go away, and get out of it all. 

) But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t leave us and the peo- 
j pie. She chose to stay and work. She comforted those 
J who were in trouble, and nursed the sick with her own 
hands. It was not a very pleasant office,” he added ; 

' “ but she went through with it all ; and behaved like 

j the gracious, and fearless, and godly woman that she 
i was.” 

Mr. Mainwaring drew himself up, and looked at 
Wharton with a somewhat bitter smile. 

“ Yerily she had her reward,” he went on. “ She 
pulled a lot of cases through by sheer pluck and pa- 
tience. She was loved and honored by all. And then, 


340 


MRS. LORIMER. 

one day, slie got a cold, or a chill, or something, and 
she sickened herself, and — ” 

Mr. Mainwaring’s voice broke suddenly. 

“I^ow you know all I have to tell you,” he added, 
after a minute or two. 

Wharton had nothing to answer. He stood looking 
on the ground, lost in a maze of strange and painful 
reflections. With Elizabeth, he felt, it must be well, 
for she had fulfllled her highest ideal — and that, not 
aided by romantic and sympathetic surroundings, in an 
atmosphere charged with the spirit of sacred devotion ; 
but hardly, in the plain, commonplace life of a dull, little 
Midlandshire village. A clay soil, a wet summer, a bad 
harvest, very ordinary, stolid, laboring men and women 
ill with fever, a certain determination to go her own 
way — call it foolhardy or heroic, as you please — with a 
background of solid comfort, secure prosperity, calm 
respectability — these were the curiously unexciting con- 
ditions of Elizabeth Lorimer’s martyrdom. 

C Thinking of the sweetness of her youthful grace 
, and beauty, and of her fate, Wharton was filled with 
awe and bewilderment. For a time his own personal 
sorrow was swallowed up in wonder. He could not 
understand it. 

' Suddenly he turned again to Mr. Mainwaring, who 
had been watching him in silence. 

“ What does it all mean ? ” he asked, with a fierce 
desperation. 

Mr. Mainwaring gave himself a sort of shake. 

' ' “ Ah, young man, who shall answer you that ques- ; 
tion?” he said. ‘‘Hot I ; nor men far wiser than Ij 
am.” 

Mr. Mainwaring was not in the habit of jumping at 


A SKETCH IN BLACK AND WHITE. 341 


conclusions ; he was too stately a person for that ; but 
. as he stood watching his companion he had arrived at 
a pretty distinct perception of the situation. He came 
a step nearer, and laid his hand quietly on Fred Whar- 
ton’s shoulder. 

“You loved my niece,” he said, in a low voice. 

“Ah, God! how I did love her!” cried Wharton, 
passionately, stung into vivid consciousness of the mag- 
nitude of his own misery and desolation again. 

“ Poor hoy ! — ^poor hoy ! ” said Mr. Mainwaring, 
gently. 

His face was full of compassion ; yet he could have 
found it in his heart to envy the younger man the wild 
energy of his sorrow. 

Mr. Mainwaring’s grief was of a very different com- 
plexion. It did not strive or cry, it was patient and 
dry-eyed ; hut he knew that it would rise ear ly and lat§ 
take rest ; that it would make him 1 eat t he bread of 
affliction and drink the waters of hitterness, through aU ' 
the co ming days and y^r^, till his body should he J^id, 
there, in the quiet country churchyard ; and till his 
soul too should have found its rest, at last, in the blessed 
calm of “ the land that is very far off.” 

“ In losing her I have lost everything,” said Whar- 
ton, in a despairing voice. " 

“JSTo, no,” answered Mr. Mainwaring, quickly, and 
almost sternly ; “you have not lost everything. Your 
faith is left you as a Christian ; your honor is left you 
as a gentleman ; your work of some sort is left you too, 

I suppose ; or, if you have no work, it is easy enough 
to find some — there’s plenty waiting to he done on every 
side. You’re very hard hit just now; hut remember 
you’re not alone. Sad things happen every day ; worse 


842 


MRS. LORIMER. 


things than have happened to you. Yes, worse things 
even than death, and than knowing you will never hold 
the woman you love in your arms.” He paused, and 
then went on kindly : ‘‘ After all, you know, time is on 
your side. You are young yet, and all the best of your 
life may still be before you. A man at your age gets 
over a blow like this with a few ugly scars ; while a 
man of my age just bleed s qufe^tly to death.” 

Mr. Mainwaring smiled a little as^ said the last 
few words, and stuck out his under lip. 

Wharton stood fairly awed before the strength which 
could smile thus stoically at its own suffering. It seemed 
to pull him together somehow, and give him courage to 
face the world again. 

‘‘ Thank you,” he said, simply. 

The wind — which had risen considerably in the 
course of the last hour, and promised to clear the sky ^ 
of clouds by mid-day — rushed through the swaying 
tree-tops, dashed the drops from the glistening laurels 
on either side the carriage-drive, and cried and called 
plaintively round the gables of the old sand-stone house. 
There was a little space of silence, between the two 
men who, each in his own way, had so truly loved one 
woman. Then Mr. Mainwaring raised his hat, and 
standing there, uncovered, in the driving rain, said very 
calmly and reverently : 

Ah, my dear little Lizzie ! God rest her sweet 
soul ! ” 


THE END. 


Christian Reid’s Novels. 

» 

• ( 

“The author has wrought with care and with a good ethical and artistic 
purpose ; and these are the essential needs in the building up of an American 
literature.” 


VALERIE AYLMER. 

1 vol., 8vo Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25, 

MORTON HOUSE. 

1 vol., 8vo Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

MABEL LEE. 

' 1 vol., 8yo. Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

EBB-TIDE. 

livol., 8vo Paper, 75 cents; cloth, $1 25. 

NINA’S ATONEMENT, and other Stories. 

1 vol., 8vo Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

A DAUGHTER OF BOHEMIA. 

1 voir, 8vo Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

BONNY KATE. 

1 vol., 8vo Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25, 

^THE LAND OF THE SKY. 

Illustrated, 8vo Paper, 75 cents ; cloth,,$1.25, 

AFTER MANY DAYS. 

1 vol., 8vo Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

HEARTS AND HANDS. 

8vo Paper, 50 cents. 

A GENTLE BELLE. 

8vo Paper, 50 cents. 

A QUESTION OF HONOR. 

1 vol., 12mo Cloth, $1.25. 

A SUMMER IDYL. 

(Forming No. XII in Appletons’ “New Handy-Volume Series.”) 1vol., 
18mo. Paper, 30 cents ; cloth, 60 cents. 

HEART OF STEEL. 

1 vol., 16mo Cloth, $1.25. 


*** Either of abe/oe mailed to any address in the United States^ postage 
paid^ on receipt of the price. 

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond St., New York. 


Rhoda Broughton’s Novels 


love the romances of 3Tiss Broughton ; I think 
them much truer to Nature than Ouida’s, and more 
impassioned and less preachy than George Eliot’s. 
3Iiss Broughton’s heroines are living being s, having 
not only flesh and blood, but also esprit and soul; 
in a word, they are real women, neither animals 
nor angels, but allied to both .” — Andke Theuriet (the 
French novelist). 


SECOND THOUGHTS. 18mo. Paper cover, 60 cents ; cloth, *75^ 
cents. 

JOAN. 8vo. Paper cover, '75 cents. 

COMETH UP AS A FLOWER. 8vo. Paper cover, 60 cents. 
The same. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

NOT WISELY, BUT TOO WELL. 8vo. Paper cover, 60 
cents. 

The same. 12mo. Cloth, $1,60. 

NANCY. 8vo. Paper cover, 75 cents. 

The same. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART ! 8vo. Paper cover, 75 cents. 
The same. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

RED AS A ROSE IS SHE. 8vo. Paper cover, 60 cents. 

The same. 12mo. Cloth, $1.60. 


sale by all booksellers ; or any work sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of 

price. 


New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 8, & 6 Bond Street. 


UNCLE REMUS; 

His Songs and his Sayings, 

THE FOLK-LORE OF THE OLD PLANTATION. 

By JOEL CHANDLEI\ HARRIS. 


“ The idea of preserving and publishing these legends in the fonn in 
which the old plantation negroes actually tell them, is altogether one of the 
happiest literary conceptions of the day. And very admirably is the work 
done, ... In such touches lies the charm of this fascinating little volume 
of legends, which deserves to be placed on a level w'ith Re^ncke Fuchs for 
its quaint humor, without reference to the ethnological interest possessed 
by these stories, as indicating, perhaps, a common origin for very widely- 
severed races.” — London Spedator. 

“We are just discovering what admirable literary material there is at 
home, what a great mine there is to explore, and how quaint and peculiar 
is the material which can be dug up. Mr. Harris’s book may be looked 
on in a double light — either as a pleasant volume recounting the stories 
told by a typical old colored man to a child, or as a valuable contribution 
to our somewhat meager folk-lore. ... To Northern readers the story of 
Brer (Brother — Brudder) Babbit may be novel,' To those familiar with 
plantation life, who have listened to these quaint old stories, who have 
still tender reminiscences of some good old mauma who told these won- 
drous adventures to them when they were children. Brer Babbit, the Tar 
Baby, and Brer Fox, come back again with all the past pleasmes of younger 
days.” — Few York Times. 

“ Uncle Bemus’s sayings on current happenings are very shrewd and 
bright, and the plantation and revival songs are choice specimens of their 
sort.” — Boston Journal, 

“ The volume is a most readable one, whether it be regarded as a hu- 
morous book merely, or as a contribution to the literature of folk-lore.” — 
New York World. 

“ This is a thoroughly amusing book, and is much the best humorous 
compilation that has been put before the American public for many a day.” 
—Philadelphia Telegraph. 


Well illustrated from Drawings by F. S. Church, whose humorous ani- 
mal di’a wings are so well known, and J. H. Moser, of Georgia. 

12mo, cloth. Price, ^1.50. 

For sale by aU booksellers ; or sent by maU^ post-paid^ on receipt of price. 


New York; D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, cfe 5 Bond Street. 


AFPLETOM POPULAR SERIES. 


' I. 

RODMAN THE. KEEPER: 

Southern Sketches. By Constance Fenimore Woolson, author of “ Anne,” 
etc. New cheap edition. 16mo, paper. Price, 60 cents. 

The success of Miss Woolson’s novel, “Anne,” has caused afresh ^ 
demand for the artistic and remarkable sketches in the above volume. 

II. 

IN THE BRUSH; 

Or, old-time SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE IN THE SOUTH- 
WEST. By H. W. Pierson, D. D. Illustrated by W. L, Sheppard. 
New cheap edition. ]6mo, paper. Price, 60 cents. 

“ It has peculiar attractions in its literary methods^ its oich and quiet 
humor ^ and the genial spirit of its author P — The Critic. 

III. 

THE ODDEST OF COURTSHIPS ; ' 

Or, the bloody CHASM. A Novel. By J. W. De Forest, author ^ 
of “ The Wetherel Affair,” “ Overland,” etc. 16mo, paper. Price, ‘ 
60 cents. 

last., it seems, we have the American novel, with letters royal to 
attest its hirthrightP — Home Journal. 

IV. 

THE NEW NOBILITY; 

A Story of Europe and America. By J. W. Forney. New cheap edition. . 
16mo, paper. Price, 60 cents. 

“ The New Nobility ” is remarkable for its varied scenes and charac- 
ters, for the range of themes that it covers', and for its picturesque and 
animated style. “ - . 

■ i 

New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 8, & 5 Bond Street. f 

LEJalO ' 





(• . 


' r 


' . H :• 


' ' ’■ 

k’^y‘;'»v. , *. 








fc' 4 •• * . 


•V 


vr» V 


IV ; ■^‘ •- 

■• \7'rT^ C ‘ilL- V ‘■^■^ * < 

«^>*;. 1 ^ . ’ . V N, 

t 
) 


' »' « 


t « 


1 •• 


f-:^^ : f.-- 

1 ' * *- 


'V 






v*.. 


^ ’ k’ «•• 

M ^ V . 


J-' ■■,. ,?-i. ■ - ' 

. .■ 'f/y-.--. 

f.\ '7 ,* • • • * . ’ » 

. ,,i ■ .‘V«"-‘ 

M - • w 5 

'if' *■■'■■ 1 -- 


V 


• > 



\.V^^ 


; k*zv- - 


* % ' x% 




» -».•’.►'•• _' .'.. - • *' ^ • < *« X s 

... :'■>■'• -vv-'v. ^ *.•■ . *'' • ‘ '-• 


V '".'v ■« * 




• > 


I 






TtAm T . V' ■• ■ ■ .V • ■'> 


• n.,* • , # 




« 4 


4 J 


rJ^ j 


• 4 - 


^ t 




t t \ . 


l\ .% 


U ». V 


• r 


« « 




" ■ V l-X 



. ’* ■, " 

. ; y;->i‘r.--x^] 

. » . • 


»•» 



a 


•V- 


> • 


*• . 


/f 







• • 


■ k 





V-tf. •/• •-■. \ jfe' 
l.“ ; ,• '. ' Jv -' SI 

\ ' V ’q y 


. 1 . <’ 



'^'^- '^i;: 

■ A. . ■ '■. v/, t 

. • . ' > 






( ' - .'r- A-- 

1 ^-.y* ■ , 


< \ 


/ » 


y 




.«! 



. «*' L.V. 


.^v «»- 








